THE POLITICAL PROBLEM 



BY 



ALBERT STICKNEY 

AUTHOR OF "DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT " ETC. 



/£ 








NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1890 



«» 



i>*y^ 



Copyright, 1889, by Albert Stickney. 



All rights reserved. 



V. 



"The men are ripe of Saxon kind 
To build an equal state." — Emerson. 



"And contemporaneously with all this, the American 
nation came upon the scene, equipped as no other nation 
had ever been for the task of combining sovereignty with 
liberty, indestructible union of the whole with indestrcutible 
life in all the parts."— Fiske. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGS 

Introductory 1 

Chap. I. The Theory of Our Political System . 6 

Chap. II. The Practical Results 14 

Chap. III. The Changes Needed 67 

Some General Considerations. .,.,„., 177 



THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

Careful observers of the drift of public af- 
fairs must have seen of late a deep and increas- 
ing discontent, in Europe and in this country, 
with the practical working of existing forms of 
democratic government. Even among the friends 
of democracy it is easy to see indications of doubt 
as to the success of democratic institutions, con- 
sidered as the mere machinery for the transac- 
tion of public business. While they are still firm 
in their belief that democratic institutions, of 
some form, are essential for the security of the 
liberties of the citizen and the people, yet they 
are also often ready to concede that democratic 
institutions may yet not furnish the most suc- 
cessful working political machinery, considered 
from a standpoint purely administrative. 

But we may go even further. 

The essential idea of democracy is that the su- 
l 



2 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

preme power in the State is in the hands of the 
people. 

That is the theory. 

But how is it with us, at the present day, in 
practice ? In this country will any one say that 
public men and public methods are under the su- 
preme control of the people? Do the people 
really select their own public servants ? Do the 
people control those servants after the servants 
are selected? 

In short, does this American people, at this 
day, under its present political system, have any- 
thing more, in practice, than a right of revolu- 
tion ? It is, no doubt, the fact that when any 
particular body of professional politicians too far 
outrages the public sense of decency, the people 
can revolt, and for a time remove certain indi- 
viduals from certain public places. But, when 
that has been done, how often do we succeed in 
getting any substantial or lasting improvement 
in public men or public methods ? 

Our present political system is one of legalized 
revolution. Once in four years, in our national 
government, we have a revolution — a great strug- 
gle, conducted, it may be, under the strictest com- 
pliance with the requirements of the law, for the 
possession of the highest public places and the 



INTRODUCTORY. 



public treasury — between the men who are in 
office and the men who are out of office. In 
form, this struggle is one between two or more 
great political " parties," as they are termed. In 
fact, the struggle is quite as often between dif- 
ferent factions of one party. Almost always 
the contest is one, between persons, for places. 

In these great contests all reasonable men 
agree that incidentally great harm is done to the 
highest public interests. The highest efforts of 
our highest public servants, that should be given 
to the service of the people, are in fact given to 
the service of persons. The highest public places, 
which should be filled with men carefully selected 
with a view only to their fitness for those places, 
are often virtually bought and sold — for money. 
The public service lacks efficiency and stability. 
Public servants lack ability and experience. 

It is no doubt possible that these defects are 
necessary, are unavoidable. It may be that it is 
not practicable to secure any large degree of po- 
litical liberty and political activity for the citi- 
zen, and at the same time secure vigor and effi- 
ciency of administration. 

However that may be, there is no doubt that 
there is at present deep discontent with the act- 
ual working of our political institutions. Think- 



4 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

ing men are considering whether there is not 
some remedy, at least partial, for existing polit- 
ical evils. Many of them are beginning to de- 
spair as to the practical success of democratic 
institutions. 

But are we not somewhat hasty if we con- 
clude that democratic institutions have yet 
reached their full development ? Is it altogeth- 
er reasonable to suppose that our ancestors, one 
hundred years ago, when they made the very 
first experiment in the world's history in demo- 
cratic government on any large scale, created 
and organized a great political system that was 
perfect, in which there was no possibility of im- 
provement ? Considering their work then in 
hand, they were a mere group of political theo- 
rists. The members of the Constitutional Con- 
vention of 1787 were merely laying down on 
paper the lines of a political experiment. No 
one of them professed to feel any degree of cer- 
tainty as to what would be the results of that 
experiment. Each one of them, as far as I am 
aware, as to those results had the deepest doubt 
and distrust. Is it possible, then, that their work 
was perfect — was finished for all time % 

Such a supposition would be most absurd. It 
is certain that time must have shown defects in 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

our political machinery, and that those defects 
can be discovered, from a careful study of its 
actual working results. 

Is it not, too, at least possible, that the same 
careful study will not merely discover the defects, 
but will also give us some light as to possible im- 
provements that are now practicable ? 

If, too, it is now possible, in the light of our 
past experience, to discover some possible im- 
provements in our political machinery, can there 
be any matter more interesting or more impor- 
tant for the public thought ? 

I propose, therefore, to here submit the ideas 
of a single individual, on these public questions, 
for public consideration. They are only the ideas 
of one person. If they have value they will 
receive due consideration. They may need great 
modification — or, indeed, they may be entirely 
unsound. As to that, time will show. 

In this examination of the political problem, 
in the solution of which the American people is 
now engaged, I shall consider, first, the theory 
of our present political system ; then, its actual 
working results ; and thereafter, the changes 
that would seem to be necessary in our political 
machinery, in the light of our past political ex- 
perience. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE THEORY OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 

The main idea on which our political system 
has thus far been developed has been that of se- 
curing the rights and liberties of the individual 
citizen. 

We have not, thus far, attempted to work out, 
in practical shape, the idea of a large people, or- 
ganized as a single corporate body, having its 
different organs and members, its own brain and 
will, for the administration of its own public af- 
fairs. A government, too, has generally been 
considered rather as a body of rulers who were 
to be largely feared and distrusted, who might 
possibly become tyrants, than as an organized 
body of public servants. 

The idea, therefore, has been, on the one hand, 
to avoid the concentration of power in the hands 
of single public officials, or single bodies of pub- 
lic officials, and to keep the supreme power in 
the State, the selection and the control of the 



THE THEORY OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 7 

highest public officers, as far as possible in the 
hands of the individual citizens. These individ- 
ual citizens, too, under the letter and the theory 
of the law, were merely to be counted, not 
weighed. One man's voice was to count for as 
much as that of another. Public questions were 
to be decided by the vote of a mere majority — 
by count — of the votes of individuals. The po- 
litical action thus taken, though often called the 
action of the people, has really been, and has 
been considered, the action only of numbers of 
individual citizens. Popular government has 
been, in theory, a government of masses and 
majorities. 

Xo theory of democratic government is practi- 
cable under which the public work of any large 
people is to be actually done, indiscriminately, or 
by turns, by the individual citizens themselves. 
The utmost that has been attempted, in the way 
of giving the individual citizen a direct personal 
part in the management of public affairs, has 
been to give him a direct vote in the selection 
and control of some of the highest public offi- 
cials, who are actually to do the work. That 
work cannot be actually done by all the citizens, 
in their own persons, with their own hands. Nor 
can they all take turns at it — except in the case of 



8 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

small peoples of small numbers. Wherever the 
numbers of a people are large, the real work of 
government must be done by men specially se- 
lected. In the affairs of a small town or village 
it is, no doubt, a possibility to avoid specialization 
in public work to some extent. The work is 
small ; in a small country town it is possible to 
have every man make and repair the roads in 
front of his own land; to have the teacher of 
the district school live by turns in different fam- 
ilies ; even the teaching of the school can be 
virtually taken by turns; it can be put in the 
hands of the daughter of one citizen for one 
period, and then in the hands of another daugh- 
ter for another period. In the same way the 
few other public offices can be held by turns. 
And it may be, in very small peoples, that all 
the public work can be done on the rotatory 
system. No doubt the work will be clone badly. 
Teaching the district school, the nursery of 
statesmen and of the fathers and mothers of 
statesmen, is one of the most important works 
in the State ; it demands a rare combination, of 
temperament, knowledge, and experience, if the 
work is to be done well — if the sons and daughters 
of poor men are to have a good common-school 
education. But public work can be done, and 



THE THEORY OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 9 

endured, in a very small town or village, on the 
system of turn and turn about. When, however, 
we come to the public affairs of large peoples, 
of large cities, large states, and large nations, 
then thinking men must agree that public ser- 
vants must be men who are in some w x ay spe- 
cially selected, for their fitness, to do the act- 
ual public work. It can no longer be done by 
every one, or it will be done by no one. With 
peoples of large numbers, therefore, the utmost 
that is possible, in the way of giving power to 
the individual citizen, is to give him his one voice 
in the selection and control of those men by whom 
the public work is actually to be done. 

The mere point of selection of those public ser- 
vants seems, at first sight, comparatively simple 
and easy. It seems, at first thought, a simple 
and easy matter to select a mayor, or a governor, 
or even a president, by a mere majority vote of 
the citizens, even if the numbers of the people 
be verv large. 

But, though there seems to be no difficulty in 
the matter of selection, when we come to the 
point of control, and consider the question of 
how the individual citizens are to control, not 
merely one or two officials, but the entire gov- 
ernment, the solution is not so easy. In prac- 



10 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

tice, it has been attempted to secure this point 
of control by the use of the same process — this 
process of popular election, so-called — using it 
for a large number of officers, at short and fixed 
intervals of time, that is, for short and fixed terms 
of office. The theory is, by having terms of 
office short and elections frequent, to keep the 
official under the control of the citizen all the 
time — or as nearly so as is possible. The result is 
a use of this process of so-called popular election 
to a large extent and for diverse purposes, not 
merely for the selection of the highest public of- 
ficials, but also for the purpose of controlling 
them. The intention has been, not that the of- 
ficial shall hold his office for only one short term 
of years, for that would make it impossible for 
public servants to gain experience, but that the 
official is to continue to hold his office, for one 
term after another, so long as a majority of the 
citizens shall see fit to re-elect him? In other 
words, the highest public officials are to hold 
their offices on the tenure by election. In this 
way it has been assumed that not merely the se- 
lection of the highest officials, but the substantial 
control of their official action, would be in the 
hands of the individual citizens. 

A necessary result of this attempt to keep 



THE THEORY OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 11 

power in the hands of the individual citizen, to 
have him take a direct part, in his own person, 
in the selection and control of a large number of 
the highest public officials, is the general disuse 
of the public meeting ; that is, the disuse of the 
public meeting as the organ for the political ac- 
tion of the citizens themselves. It is retained in 
the cases of legislatures and boards and commis- 
sions. But, as the organ for the action of the 
citizens themselves, it necessarily falls into disuse 
wherever the numbers of the citizens are large, if 
each citizen is to act in his own person. A pub- 
lic meeting of ten million voters, or of any large 
number of voters, for the purpose of common de- 
liberation, is not a practicable thing. Experience 
shows that the largest number of men that can 
meet in one body, and conduct rational, calm de- 
liberation, as a single body, cannot much exceed 
five hundred. With numbers much larger than 
that, common deliberation becomes impossible. 
It is no doubt possible to have mass meetings, of 
large numbers of men, where great orators can 
excite great enthusiasm by appeals to the feel- 
ings. But for the purpose of common conference 
and common thought, where men of different 
ways of thinking can quietly hear one another's 
views, yield to the influence of rational argu- 



12 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

ment, and come to an agreement as to a common 
course of action, any meeting of much more 
than five hundred men is unmanageable. The 
attempt, therefore, in any people of large num- 
bers, to have all the individual citizens take a 
direct personal part in political action must nec- 
essarily involve the use of the individual paper 
ballot, and the disuse of the public meeting. 

In practice still another result has ensued: 
The theory has been that freedom of political 
action meant that the action of the individual 
citizen should be free from the influence of other 
men. This theory, in practice, has taken the 
form of having the action of the citizen secret, 
of having the citizen declare his will, on public 
questions of men and measures, by a paper bal- 
lot that is secret. 

The general idea of our present political sys- 
tem, then, is that the supreme control of all pub- 
lic affairs, of the entire nation, of the states, 
cities, towns, and villages, is to be in the hands 
of the mass of individual citizens, who are to use 
the individual secret ballot, without the public 
meeting, for the selection of the highest public 
officials, and that these highest officials are not 
only to be selected by this process, but that the 
same process is to fix their official tenure. The 



THE THEORY OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. 13 

theory is, that thus the supreme control of all 
public affairs will be in the hands of the individ- 
ual citizens, and that they will also thus secure 
complete freedom of individual political action. 

That is the theory. 

Careful thought will, however, suggest that 
the system, as carried out in practice, involves a 
very large use of this process of so-called popu- 
lar election. 

It might be surmised that, in practice, this 
system of tenure by election, used for so many 
offices, at such short intervals of time, and over 
such large areas of territory, might cause pub- 
lic servants to give their time and thought to 
carrying elections instead of doing their official 
work — in other words, that government might 
be turned into an election machine. 

But we have the theory. 

Let us now turn our attention to the practical 
results. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 

The theory has a good sound. 

This idea of having the individual citizen 
utter his individual judgment, once in each year 
or term of years, on the conduct of affairs by his 
public servants, who are selected by himself, by 
his exercise of the franchise vested in him as a 
citizen of a great republic, and as one of a great 
brotherhood of men, each one of whom is born 
free, and who is the peer of each one of his mill- 
ions of fellow citizens, quite stirs one's blood. 
This theory of making the highest public ser- 
vants of a great nation directly responsible to 
the individual citizen, through this process of fre- 
quent popular election, is quite impressive and 
quite plausible — as a theory — on paper. 

Let us see how it works. 

The hard, practical experience of one hundred 
years has now definitely established, as to the 
actual working of our present political system, 
certain fundamental political facts. Among them 
are the following : 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 15 

1. The system creates a privileged class. 

In one sense any form of government must be 
a government by a class ; that is, it must be a 
government by a body of men who are in some 
way specially selected for the public service. 

But the theory of a democratic government is 
that at least the men at the head of the govern- 
ment are to be chosen for their worth, on their 
merits, by the people. 

But this is not the practical result that our 
present system gives. "What I mean when I say 
that our present political system creates a privi- 
leged class is, that it brings into existence, natu- 
rally and necessarily, though not by any express 
provision of law, a class of men who are selected, 
not by the people, but by themselves, who virtu- 
ally to a large extent control the selection and 
action of all our public officials. 

Bear in mind that under our present political 
system the highest places in the government, na- 
tional, state, and local, in other words, the prizes 
of public life, are to be won by carrying elections. 

This work of carrying elections is very large, 
and recurs at regular and very short intervals. 
To state it more correctly, the work never ends. 
Here is a very large number of public offices. 
The terms of office are very short. Every year 



16 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

there is a large number of vacancies to be filled 
by this process of election ; and it is known 
precisely what those vacancies are to be. This 
large amount of election work must be done by 
some one. The doing of it has the possibility of 
great rewards. Naturally and certainly it finds 
men ready to do it, and usually their readiness to 
do the work is caused by the prospect of the re- 
wards that the work promises. These men who 
do election w^ork make it their regular profession, 
their business. In that profession they gain great 
skill. They organize. In time it comes to be 
virtually impossible for any man to be elected to 
a public office except by their permission and 
with their active support. These organizations of 
professional electioneering agents virtually con- 
trol the selection, and therefore largely control 
the official action, of nearly all our highest pub- 
lic officials in the entire country, national, state, 
and local. It is no doubt the fact that our pub- 
lic officials, in the large majority of cases, intend 
to perform their official duties to the best of their 
ability. As a class, even under the great disad- 
vantages under which they now labor, they do 
their work as well as they can. But they are not 
free. Most of them depend on the professional 
politicians for their next nomination, and there- 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 1 V 

fore for their next election, to their public posi- 
tions ; in other words, they depend on the pro- 
fessional politicians for their official lives and for- 
tunes. It is certain, therefore, that they will be 
largely controlled by those politicians. The pro- 
fessionals too, no doubt, are, to some degree, in- 
fluenced by public opinion. But this influence 
has its limits. No doubt, too, the professionals, 
in a large majority of cases, so far as is allowed 
by their personal interests, endeavor to select 
fairly good men for office. But for every office 
there are many seekers. Election work must be 
done, and it must be paid for. So long as the 
highest officials are dependent for the continu- 
ance of their official existence on that work, it is 
and will be paid for with the people's offices. 
Whatever may be the general wishes and pur- 
poses of the leaders of these great organizations, 
however much they may wish, as many of them 
do, to follow public opinion and serve public in- 
terests, they are compelled, by the necessities of 
their official existence, to pay their followers 
with the people's offices ; in other words, to use 
the people's offices for their own personal ends. 
These large organizations become virtually stand- 
ing armies, engaged in a constant struggle for 
the spoils of public office and the control of the 
2 



18 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

public treasury. Their leaders become a very 
peculiar specimen of a privileged class. They 
are not selected by the people. They are not rec- 
ognized by the letter of the law. They come into 
existence outside the law, as a certain and neces- 
sary fruit of a political system in which a large 
number of the highest public places are regularly 
and frequently put up as the prizes to be won in 
a great contest where large moneyed interests are 
at stake and where there are large constituencies. 
Such a system, may serve fairly well for the 
administration of communities that are small and 
poor. It will certainly be a failure with peoples 
that are large and rich. With such peoples it 
will necessarily and surely result in the creation 
of a privileged class of professional election work- 
ers who to a large extent control the selection of 
public servants and the administration of public 
affairs. 

2. The system bars the best citizens from the 
public service. 

The best citizens neglect this work of carrying 
elections. 

They neglect it, because they are compelled to 
do so. They cannot take the time that it re- 
quires. The best class of citizens are the men 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 19 

who work, who are driven with work, because 
their services are in demand, for the reason that 
they have been found to be honest and indus- 
trious. Their time has value. Their private 
work must be done ; and it is their habit to do 
it well. The time needed to do this present vast 
mass of election work is greater than they can 
possibly afford to give. They cannot give it, 
and they will not. 

It is not that our citizens do not take a suffi- 
cient interest in public affairs, that they are not 
patriotic, or that they are unwilling to make sac- 
rifices to serve public interests. This American 
people has very many and very recent proofs of 
the readiness of its individual citizens to make 
personal sacrifices in the cause of the people. 
But this work of carrying elections is too great, 
too continuous, and too engrossing. Those men 
in the community who have their own way to 
make, their own living to earn, by their own 
labor, cannot take the time that is necessary to 
do the mass of election work that now comes on 
the community. 

The result is that, in this work of arranging 
nominations and carrying elections, the busy 
men, the working men in the community, find 
themselves at a hopeless disadvantage. Many 



20 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

of them at times make a sincere and earnest 
effort to do what they deem their duty to the 
State, and to use their just influence in the selec- 
tion of fit public servants. But the men who 
regularly betake themselves to this work of car- 
rying elections do so to make money. In that 
work they have a direct personal pecuniary in- 
terest. At that work they get great skill. With 
them, in their own field, the ordinary lay citizen 
can never cope. It is the old story of the amateur 
against the professional, and the professional wins. 
It is the law of nature. It is needless to say that 
the amateur sooner or later withdraws from a con- 
test so unequal, attended with defeat so uniform, 
and the professionals have the field to themselves. 

I assume, what I believe to be the fact, that 
the large majority of citizens really wish to select 
the best men for their public servants. That is 
for their interest. It saves their money, lessens 
their taxes, makes life easier and more comfort- 
able — and that they know. 

I assume, also, what I believe to be the fact, 
that the professional politicians who are in office, 
the large majority of them, honestly try to give 
us as honest and efficient administration of pub- 
lic affairs as they can — under existing circum- 
stances. 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 21 

But the professional politicians naturally, as 
do all men, look out for their own personal in- 
terests. They are compelled to do so. They 
nominate and elect men on whom they can de- 
pend to serve those personal interests. The pol- 
iticians need men who are pliable, and they get 
them. But the men who will best guard the 
interests of the public are not pliable. They are 
made of firm stuff. As a rule they are not men 
who are what is termed " popular." They are the 
men who will do what they think is demanded 
by a full regard to public interests, with little or 
no regard to interests that are purely personal. 

The result is that the politicians, w T ho have the 
power, who substantially select all our highest 
public officials, sooner or later throw aside the 
men w T ho will not serve personal ends. At times 
the professional election workers are compelled, 
under the stress of peculiar circumstances, to 
nominate and elect very valuable men. But in 
time — however well single public officers may 
serve the people, however often professional pol- 
iticians may make concessions to public opinion 
in occasional nominations of popular men — these 
politicians will in the end succeed in quietly elim- 
inating from public life men who are independent 
and serve only the interests of the public. The 



22 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

best men, whether they wish it or not > are grad- 
ually retired, or are put in places where they 
have no real power. 

It is, no doubt, the fact that many individuals, 
who are fairly efficient public servants, in one way 
and another, under circumstances more or less 
exceptional, do succeed in keeping their places 
in the public service — for a time. But in gen- 
eral the tendency is (and the tendency works it- 
self out with great success) to keep and drive the 
best citizens out of the public service. They find 
it hard to get in — and, as a rule, impossible to 
stay in for any long time. 

I am here considering ordinary times, times of 
peace, times when no unusual call is made on the 
citizen for the sacrifice of his private interests. 
When war comes, when it is a question of life 
and death to the nation, then this American peo- 
ple has thus far found many men willing to risk 
their lives and fortunes in the service of the peo- 
ple. So too, in times of great popular political 
excitement, in times that may properly be termed 
revolutionary, many of the best citizens make 
large sacrifices of time and money, to effect, if 
possible, the election of competent and honest 
men to high public office. 

But in ordinary times men do not feel called 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. V* 

on to make sacrifices so large. Then most men 
prefer their own ease and comfort, and wish to 
look after themselves and their families. In 
those ordinary times the men whose labor is 
valuable, who command good wages and steady 
employment, are not willing to take the risks 
and discomforts of depending for their livelihood 
on the contingencies of popular elections, as those 
elections must necessarily be carried on under 
our present political system. They cannot afford 
it, unless they are men of independent fortune, or 
are willing to steal. They must, can, and will 
have security for steady employment, at reason- 
able rates of compensation. A man who is mak- 
ing a fair income, in a reputable calling, may be 
willing, for a single year, to neglect his private 
affairs. He may do so even for two years. But 
to undertake the duties of any ordinary public 
office for a term of four, or five, or ten years is 
ordinarily beyond his power. To do so for a 
still longer term, if he is to perform his official 
duties with thoroughness, is too much to ask. - 
At the end of so long a time his place in private 
affairs will be probably filled, and he will be 
compelled, in a measure, to begin life anew, under 
great disadvantages, when he is well on in years. 
Such risks will not be taken by prudent men. 



24 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

Such men rightly require greater security of 
regular employment than they can now have 
under our political system. Eich men and 
needy adventurers are, as a rule, now the only 
classes of men who can afford to go into " poli- 
tics." But men without fortunes, who are com- 
pelled to earn their own incomes, cannot afford 
the effort to enter public life. It is no doubt the 
fact that many young men, and many estimable 
men, from very praiseworthy motives, give much 
time to the practical work of carrying elections. 
But men of prudence, who have their fortunes still 
to make, cannot at present afford to touch politics. 

There is a further consideration. 

The getting of public office, under our present 
system, by our present processes of nomination 
and popular election, generally requires either the 
doing of a large amount of dirty work, or the 
payment of large amounts of money for the do- 
ing of it by other men. All this work, of con- 
ventions and nominations, brass bands, parades, 
and election literature, with the support of the 
professional politicians, without whose support 
no man can now obtain any public office, must 
be paid for, either in money or in kind. Candi- 
dates for office must, as a rule, hold themselves 
more or less at the beck and call of verv dis- 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. za 

agreeable people. They must do a large amount 
of very disagreeable work. They must talk with 
the politicians ; they must talk with individual 
voters ; they must talk with any one who wishes 
to talk with them ; they must offend no one ; 
they must make themselves " popular." 

At times these experiences, which are not 
agreeable to men of independence, may be 
avoided by the contribution of considerable 
amounts of money. Xearly always candidates 
must make, in one way or another, a considerable 
money outlay. Some of this money, the candi- 
dates perfectly well know, must be used, directly 
or indirectly, in one form or another, to buy 
nominations and votes. It is not usually the 
case that candidates go so far as to pay, or agree 
to pay, any fixed amount of money for a nomi- 
nation or a vote. They perfectly well know, how- 
ever, that nominations and votes will be bought 
in their behalf, by other men, with money. And 
if they supply money, as they almost invari- 
ably must and do, they are morally certain that 
their own money, or the money of other men 
which they repay, is used virtually for the pur- 
poses of bribery. They may net themselves 
technically commit the precise legal offence. 
They do, in effect, morally become parties to the 



26 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

commission of the offence by others. Turn and 
twist the matter as we may, this work of carry- 
ing elections, under our present system, or under 
any political system where the highest public of- 
ficers hold their offices by the tenure of popular 
election, becomes largely the buying and selling 
of nominations and votes for places and money. 

Let me not be misunderstood. My belief is 
that the process of popular election, if used in 
such a form and manner as will secure the for- 
mation and utterance of a people's real judgment, 
and if used within the proper limits, is the best 
means yet devised for selecting the highest pub- 
lic officials. But that is a very different mat- 
ter from putting those officers on the tenure by 
election after they are chosen. Especially is it a 
different matter from having the political life of 
the mass of citizens consist of a never-ending se- 
ries of elections — of all kinds of officers, great 
and small. 

While, therefore, I am a firm believer in the 
use of the process of popular election, in its right 
form and within proper limits, for the mere selec- 
tion of the highest public officials, I still say that 
our experience shows that the tendency, under 
any system where there are regular and frequent 
elections, for large numbers of offices, with large 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 27 

constituencies, necessarily and surely is to bar 
the best citizens from the public service. 

3. The system takes power out of the hands 
of the people. 

It is not meant that the people has no power 
whatever, or that the professional politicians can 
utterly, and without limit, disregard public opin- 
ion. Even under an absolute monarchy at the 
present day, with the press, and steam, and the 
telegraph, there are limits, somewhere, which 
the monarch must observe in his disregard of 
public opinion. So it is, too, with an oligarchy. 

What I mean is that the power of the people 
in matters of State is very far below what it 
ought to be, and is so slight and indirect as to 
make the name of democratic government, as 
applied to our present government, quite out 
of place. The theory is that in our govern- 
ment the will of the people is supreme at all 
times ; that at each election the people really 
makes its own choice of its own servants, in ac- 
cordance with its own independent judgment ; 
and that, in and by its selection of public men, 
it exercises a real judgment and control over 
public measures. 

But the fact is that public officials, nearly all 



28 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

of them, are virtually appointed by the profes- 
sional election brokers. Except in times of un- 
usual excitement, the process of popular election 
becomes merged in that of nomination, and the 
process of nomination is entirely under the con- 
trol of the professionals. We may say this 
ought not to be so. That is very immaterial. 
AYe have to deal with what is, and with what 
will be, so long as we keep this system. It may 
be said that this fact is the result of neglect of 
their political duties on the part of the citizens. 
But, so long as we have an amount of election 
work so vast (and it is constantly increasing), cit- 
izens will continue to neglect their political duties. 
But it cannot properly be termed neglect. 
Citizens perform their political duties as well as 
the system will allow them ; as well as they can. 
The theory on which the system was put into 
operation was a mistaken theory. Practical ex- 
perience has proved it. The system makes 
greater drafts on the time of the citizen than he 
can afford to meet. Just so long as we insist on 
keeping the system, and the other conditions re- 
main as they now are, the results will continue 
to be what they now are. Human beings, the ma- 
jority of them, will not give their time and labor 
to efforts that bring nothing but repeated failure. 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 29 

While the numbers of our citizens remained 
small, while the number of elective offices was 
comparatively small, and the contents of the 
public treasury were small, the inducements 
were less to make " politics " a trade ; the ordi- 
nary citizen stood more nearly on an equality 
with the politicians, and he made a nearer ap- 
proach to having his legitimate weight in the 
public councils. But as years went by, as the 
numbers and wealth of the people increased, our 
political system came to work out more fully its 
natural and necessary results ; the evolution of 
the professional politician became more com- 
plete, the power of the people gradually de- 
creased, and that power is now so slight that it 
is not, I submit, a proper use of words to say 
that we have a really democratic government. 

It may be said that these professional poli- 
ticians are divided into factions, or " parties," 
and that the people has at least its choice be- 
tween the candidates and politics of at least two 
organizations of professional politicians. 

That is no doubt the fact. 

But is not that a somewhat poor apology for 
a democratic government ? Can a government, 
for w^hich that is all that can be said, under 
which that is the real state of affairs, be correct- 



30 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

ly called " democratic"? Is that the best gov- 
ernment — the most democratic government — 
the one which gives to the people the fullest 
possible measure of control — that we can devise ? 
Is this the final outcome, the highest result of 
the efforts of civilized man, in the evolution of 
free political institutions ? 

I think not. 

Meantime thinking men must agree that un- 
der this system the control of its public affairs, 
which the people actually has, is not continuous 
or supreme. 

4. The system prevents the free political 
thought and free political action of the individ- 
ual citizen. 

The theory of our institutions is that the indi- 
vidual citizen should form his own judgment, on 
the merits of public men and public measures ; 
that the selection of those men and measures 
should be a selection made, deliberately, by a 
majority of those individual judgments ; in other 
words, that the men and measures of the govern- 
ment should really be the outcome of the thought 
of the citizens themselves. 

But that is not the practical result. 

The practical result is that every citizen who 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 31 

needs to earn his own livelihood in some ordi- 
nary calling is simply compelled to cast a vote 
for the appointee of one or the other of the two 
or three large organizations of professional poli- 
ticians. Otherwise he loses his vote altogether. 
Attempts at independent political action have no 
permanent effect. Sooner or later they result in 
the citizen joining, or rejoining, one or another 
of the great election armies. He becomes one of 
the pawns in the game of politics played by the 
adroit and experienced professionals. Whatever 
may be the thoughts or wishes of the individual 
citizen before election, on the day of election, as 
it is termed, he finds himself reduced to the ne- 
cessity of making a mere selection between two 
or more lists of names selected by the different 
commanders of the different election armies. He 
has, no doubt, in his privilege of deserting his 
own political army and joining another, a slight 
degree of indirect control over the otherwise ir- 
responsible tyranny of the political generals. 
But that is very far from having an independent 
initiative in the selection of public men— and 
through them of public measures. 

But it may be said that though in form the 
citizen is driven to join one or another of these 
organizations, yet in effect and in substance this 



32 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

opportunity of selecting his organization, and of 
leaving it, gives him some degree of freedom, and 
gives him all the freedom that he can expect. 

To this I answer, that, no doubt, it does give 
him freedom to some degree — but to a very 
small degree. Whether or not it gives him all 
the freedom he can expect remains to be seen, 
and will be considered later. All that I say as 
yet is, that he does not have the degree of free- 
dom that is commonly implied in the term " gov- 
ernment by the people," and that ought to be 
implied in that term. What he has is the right 
of desertion. He has, and can have, under our 
present system of government, no substantial 
voice in the selection of his generals. In both, 
or all, these election armies, the citizens, the rank 
and file, have virtually no power in selecting 
their leaders. They can desert, and join the lead- 
ers of another army. But, in either army, the 
leaders are selected by the men who make poli- 
tics their profession. They are in all the armies 
selected, by the same processes, by men of the 
same quality, who use the same methods. Which- 
ever army the citizen may join, or abandon, his 
right of desertion gives him no substantial con- 
trol of either men or measures, and is far from 
being the right of free deliberate action that he 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 33 

has been commonly supposed to possess under a 
government that has any right to be termed 
u democratic." 

Moreover, even this right of desertion is one 
that the citizen will, in fact, seldom use. Most 
men do not like to desert ; most men do not like 
deserters. Most men, too, however much they 
may disapprove the conduct of the professionals 
of their own army, generally have a great and 
controlling fear and distrust of the professionals 
of the opposing army. So that when the day of 
election comes, the working result usually is, that 
the citizen marches, gravely and sadly, after the 
same old political bell-wethers, into the same old 
political sheep-pen. There is this further very sig- 
nificant and almost grotesque feature. Experi- 
ence shows that many men inherit their political 
organizations from their fathers, die in them, and 
transmit the same valuable political inheritance 
to their sons. That is human nature. Boys 
grow up, hearing continually from their fathers 
and their fathers' political associates praise of one 
" party " and abuse of the others. The leaders of 
their fathers' parties they learn to trust ; the lead- 
ers of other parties they learn to distrust. It is a 
most singular anomaly, or apparent anomaly, this 
law of inherited opinion or prejudice, which so 
3 



34 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

largely controls the political action of the citizen, 
which is, in theory, supposed to be entirely free, 
and which should be free, in order to make dem- 
ocratic government the practical success that, 
when rightly organized, it can and w r ill become. 

But taking it as it is, as it now actually works, 
under the form in which we have thus far devel- 
oped it, in one of its primary stages of growth — 
will any one say that the American citizen, whose 
functions at present are reduced substantially to 
being the tool of political schemers, in the selec- 
tion of whom he has virtually no voice, has the 
full measure of political freedom that it is possi- 
ble for him to secure ? 

For one, I venture, on this point, to have a sin- 
gle individual doubt. 

5. The system prevents freedom of political 
thought and political action on the part of the 
people. 

It is impossible that there should be anything 
that deserves the name of freedom of thought 
and action on the part of a people, under any po- 
litical system that takes away that freedom from 
the individual citizen. 

But the thought of " a people," the judgment 
of " a people," under any correct use of terms, is 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 35 

something very different from a mere collection 
of the judgments of individual citizens, on a sin- 
gle question submitted to them beforehand, to 
which they can only answer " Yes " or " No." 

This, however, is all that it is possible to get, 
from the so-called action of a large collection of 
individual citizens, who are not brought together 
in one meeting, where it is possible to bring for- 
ward new names and new measures. Where cit- 
izens are so separated, and are thus deprived of 
the opportunity for common conference, the only 
thing that is possible for the individual citizen is 
to say " Yes" or " No " to some specific name or 
specific measure submitted to him beforehand. 

How is it possible to dignify the result so ob- 
tained, from such a process, with the name of a 
" declaration of the judgment of the people " ? 

The political histories of this country, of Eng- 
land, and in late years of France, furnish many 
illustrations of the fact that, wherever there are 
frequent elections and. large constituencies, the 
people loses all substantial freedom of political 
thought, and is compelled to swell the ranks of 
the election armies which are under the leader- 
ship and control of a new kind of lords. In form, 
each separate citizen, and the combined people, 
retains complete freedom of political action. In 



36 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

fact, and in substance, the people has nothing that 
deserves to be called by that name. It has, at 
most, the right of revolution — under the forms of 
law — with a new kind of weapon, the paper ballot. 

These so-called elections become only period- 
ical struggles for place, between the leaders of 
the different professional armies. In these strug- 
gles, as they are now conducted, there is a large 
number of processions, and banners, and brass 
bands, and so-called political meetings. A great 
deal of money is spent, and a great many speech- 
es are made. The end of these struggles, which 
are very properly termed " campaigns," is at best 
a choice between two or more sets of appointees, 
each selected by the professionals. Yery seldom, 
if ever, do we now have anything that can be 
correctly called a selection by the " judgment of 
the people," if words are to be used with a due 
regard to their real meaning. 

Nor is any other result possible. So long as 
the mass of election work is so large, and so long 
as that work controls the disposition of the high- 
est public offices, and of the public money, so 
long will these so-called popular elections con- 
tinue to be mere struggles for place between op- 
posing political armies, and the people will be 
unable to really think, judge, and act on its 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 37 

judgment, as to real public questions of men or 
measures. 

Little thought has been given, in our political 
past, to the question how a people is to think — as 
a people — to form and utter a judgment — as a 
people — having one being and one organization. 

But certainly these processes that we term 
popular elections, as now conducted, judged by 
any proper standard, cannot be called processes 
of thought, or deliberation ; they cannot be said 
to result in " judgments." 

The situation is most singular. The purpose 
of our political system is to secure the highest 
possible degree of freedom for the individual, and 
thereby for the people. But w^e have tried to 
accomplish too much. The individual is over- 
burdened. He is given, under our present or- 
ganization of the State, a work far transcending 
his possibilities. In form he has perfect freedom ; 
in fact, in substance, he is in chains. The chains 
would be thrown off at once were they forged 
by a foreign power, or a power apparently hos- 
tile. But they have been forged, and riveted, by 
the people itself — by its own free act. 

It is a most singular phenomenon. Here is a 
government — in form most free — under which 
public and private property are really often at 



38 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

the mercy of adventurers as devoid of principle, 
and of any real consideration for popular rights, 
as were the worst of the old feudal barons. 

Yet we call this " democratic government " ; 
and so it is, to some extent — in a way — inasmuch 
as we have, under the letter of the present law, 
the poiver to change it, and it stands by our own 
free will. 

Still the people, as a people, under the system as 
it now stands, has not freedom of political action. 

6. The system prevents the efficient adminis- 
tration of public affairs. 

In all human affairs men aim for the prizes. 

Election work, then, being the work that cap- 
tures the prizes, the men who make politics a 
profession will, in general, give their time and 
thought to this work of carrying elections. The 
simple, prosaic, e very-day work of their offices will, 
in general, bring to public officials little money 
and less fame. They will naturally and certainly 
give their time and thought to the work that pays. 

If, indeed, men had already become perfect, 
we might assume that they would always do 
simply their official duty, without regard to the 
greater rewards to be obtained in what we are 
now pleased to term " politics." But the men 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 31) 

who operate our political machinery are only hu- 
man. They will seek those greater rewards ; 
they will use the means by which those rewards 
can be secured ; they will do election work. 

These questions would be of comparatively 
little importance if public affairs were small, and 
public treasuries were poor, as was the case with 
us when our political system was established, and 
before its evils became apparent. 

But our public affairs are now large. They 
involve the handling of large bodies of men and 
large amounts of money and material. They re- 
quire for their successful administration men of 
large ability and large experience — especially of 
large experience in public affairs. "When our 
country was hardly anything more than a fron- 
tier, the duties of public officers and legislators 
were comparatively simple ; experience, and the 
knowledge that comes from experience, were of 
comparatively little importance. There were less 
differences in the values of men. Men were, in 
fact, more nearly equal. In these later years 
public affairs, as well as private affairs, have be- 
come larger and more complex. They demand 
men of more thorough training and wider expe- 
rience. With this system of short official terms, 
aside from all other considerations, it is simply 



40 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

impossible for our highest public officials to get 
the experience that is absolutely necessary in or- 
der to make them efficient public servants. 

It is especially in the members of what are 
termed the legislatures, of our cities, states, and 
of the nation, and in the different administrative 
heads, that we need not only men of ability and 
honesty, but men of large experience. The old 
saw, that a rolling stone gathers no moss, is as 
true in matters of state as in private callings. 
As a rule, men who are to be valuable servants 
must give their time to work of one kind, and 
must follow it for their whole lives. That is the 
law of human nature in stone-work, wood-work, 
medicine, war, law, and all other human callings, 
private or public. This need of experience is 
especially great with the men at the head of our 
governments. "With the mere administrative 
subordinates, the men at the bottom, who lay 
pavements and sewers, who carry letters and do 
merely the more mechanical portions of our pub- 
lic work, the question is comparatively unimpor- 
tant. Governments, like all other organizations 
of human beings, depend for their working effi- 
ciency on the men at the head. The men at the 
head are the ones who need capacity and train- 
ing ; and if those qualifications be wanting in the 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 41 

men at the head of the government, it matters 
little who or what are the subordinates. 

Xow under our present system of government 
it is simply impossible to secure large official ex- 
perience in the men at the head. Even assuming 
that in their short official terms they were sur- 
rounded by every possible inducement to give 
their whole time and thought to their official 
work, it would be impossible for them to get 
their greatest value as public servants in one, 
two, four, or ten years. Men grow. Those men 
who have the most in them grow for the longest 
time — up to their latest years. The older they 
grow, the wiser they grow. These questions 
that are dealt with by the members of our na- 
tional and state legislatures are large questions. 
They are varied. They cannot be decided, if 
they are to be decided wisely, on abstract prin- 
ciples. They require a wide range of knowl- 
edge, the study of wide ranges of facts. Let us 
rid ourselves of this silly, antiquated, provincial 
idea that any man can be a legislator, and that 
at that work one man after another can " take 
his turn." However able a man may be, how- 
ever much he may have studied books, however 
long may have been his experience in private af- 
fairs, in order for him to be a valuable public 



42 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

servant, in a high legislative or administrative 
position, it is essential that he should have a new 
set of facts and a new set of ideas ; facts and 
ideas that he can get in no possible way other 
than by actual experience in public office ; and 
the longer his experience, the greater is his value 
to the people. 

So far we have made the assumption that the 
public official had every inducement to use his 
time and abilities solely in the discharge of his 
official work, during his short official term. 

But have the men in our highest public places 
that inducement ? 

Can they have it ? 

It is utterly impossible. We will waste no 
time in considering the officials who are merely 
subordinates. The very large majority of our 
highest public servants, under our present sys- 
tem, selected as they are by mistaken methods, 
generally on mistaken tests, do nevertheless sin- 
cerely try to render the people the best service 
in their power. But they are compelled to give 
the largest portion of their time to personal mat- 
ters. Their time and thought must be given, 
and is given, to this never-ending struggle for 
office for their political friends and themselves. 
They have not the ordinary stimulus that the 



. THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 43 

ordinary human man requires to make him do 
his work well. It is matter for wonder that our 
public work is done as well as it is. It speaks 
volumes for the honesty and fidelity of human 
nature. Every man in high public place is the 
creature of an election. At the end of one, or 
two, or four, or it may be six years, if he is to 
hold his office, he must be the creature of anoth- 
er so-called election. But before he can get an 
election, he must secure' a nomination. The men 
who surround him on every hand are, like him- 
self, the creatures of an election. Like him, they 
must all carry the next election. In order to get 
their nominations and carry the next election, 
they all depend on one or another of those stand- 
ing armies which constitute the parts of the 
great election machine, every member of which 
is struggling for public place or public money. 
Meantime other elections besides their own are 
continually taking place. For every official place 
there are hundreds of hungry applicants. In or- 
der to secure their renominations and re-elections, 
these high public officials are compelled to give 
their time to the work of securing public offices 
and public moneys for the members of what are 
termed their " parties." A successful politician, 
nowadays, is usually a man who is generous and 



44 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

sympathetic, in giving his time and money to for- 
ward the interests of his election army, and of 
its individual members. Loyalty to one's friends 
is a quality very admirable. It is largely through 
the exercise of some of the better human instincts 
that a man is a good politician. But good " poli- 
tics" does not conduce to the preservation of 
public interests. If our highest public servants 
wish to keep their places, they are compelled to 
give public offices to their friends. They are 
compelled to work for their friends. In one 
point of view that may be praiseworthy. But 
it does not make them valuable servants for the 
public. In short, our public officials are all sur- 
rounded, through the necessary working of our 
present political system, with the strongest in- 
ducements to sacrifice public interests to private, 
and to give their best efforts to work which is 
not the work of the people. 

How is it possible for any man, who would 
otherwise take pride in his work, to take pride 
in the work of an office which he may lose at 
the end of any one or two years, and which sim- 
ple, honest, thorough work in his office will not 
help him to retain ? 

It is needless to say that our public servants 
cannot possibly do their work thoroughly ; they 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 45 

cannot give it their best thought and effort. 
They will necessarily and certainly give their time 
to election work ; they will put their best work 
where it will do the most good, in the manage- 
ment of caucuses and conventions. In short, we 
can lay it down as a law of politics — Tenure by 
election certainly destroys official efficiency, and 
turns government into an election machine. 

7. The system destroys official responsibility. 

Kesponsibility, in order to have any practical 
value — in order to be of any real practical use in 
securing efficient administration — must be the re- 
sponsibility, of single men, to some immediate offi- 
cial superior, who is always in close touch with the 
subordinate, who is competent to judge of the sub- 
ordinate's work, and who has the subordinate con- 
tinually under close supervision and full control. 

Let us examine this statement somewhat in 
detail, and see whether it is not well established 
by experience — especially by our own experience 
in public affairs. 

In the first place, I say, we must have the re- 
sponsibility of single men. 

Wherever work of administration is to be done, 
if it is to be done with vigor and thoroughness, 
there must be some one man who is responsible 



46 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

for that one work ; there must be some one man 
who is to bear the blame if the work is clone ill, 
who is to have the fame if the work is done well. 
It is now a well-established fact, in public as well 
as in private affairs, human nature being the 
same in each, that the division of power is the 
division of responsibility, and the division of re- 
sponsibility is its destruction. 

In the next place, responsibility, if it is to be 
enforced, must be responsibility to some compe- 
tent immediate official superior. There must be, 
immediately over the official, in close contact 
with him, some one man, or some one body of 
men, that is able to form an intelligent judgment 
on the quality of his work. I do not say that in 
all cases this superior must be a specialist. But 
the superior must be some man, or body of men, 
competent, from training and experience, to form 
an intelligent and sound judgment on the subor- 
dinate's work. There is no way so certain to 
destroy the self-respect, the vigor, and the free- 
dom of a servant, as to put him under the super- 
vision of a man who is ignorant — I mean igno- 
rant as to the quality of the servant's work. 

Then, too, the subordinate must know and 
feel that the supervision is regular and continu- 
ous. He must be conscious that his work is lia- 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 47 

ble to bo scrutinized at any moment ; that all his 
official weak points and his official failures may 
be found out at any time, and will be found out 
surely and soon. 

Then, too, the superior must have full and com- 
plete control of the subordinate. The subordi- 
nate must know that the superior, immediately 
over his head, has full control, within proper 
limits, with proper securities to the subordinate, 
of the subordinate's official tenure. Supervision 
without control has value ; but it is not equal to 
the requirements of an efficient service. 

So, I say, responsibility, to be adequate, espe- 
cially in any large organization of men charged 
with the conduct of large affairs, must be the re- 
sponsibility of single men to competent superi- 
ors, who have the subordinate under regular and 
constant supervision and control. 

Now apply these well-known and well-estab- 
lished facts to the working of our present form 
of government. 

Power, and, therefore, responsibility, are in 
most instances divided. The administrative 
heads, in our national, state, and municipal gov- 
ernments, seldom have the appointment or con- 
trol of their subordinates. We do not have the 
responsibility of individuals. 



48 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

But as to our highest administrative and le^is- 
lative officials, on whom we must, of course, de- 
pend for efficient administration, the case is still 
stronger. In practice it is almost impossible to 
remove single individuals for their single individ- 
ual deficiencies. Everything is massed. When 
it comes to what we term " election day," then 
the practical question to the citizen is, not " Has 
this one official, or that one official, done his 
official duty ;" but " Is it, upon the whole, pru- 
dent for me to hand over the control of the whole 
government to the opposite party?" His con- 
clusion is, almost invariably, that he must, at 
least for this one time, until some more pressing 
exigency arises, stand by his political colors. 
The time for desertion seldom comes. At times, 
when the citizen thinks that it has come — before 
election — he knows that by the act of desertion 
he will lose all weight in his party councils. He 
usually believes, sincerely, that the success of his 
party, each and every year, is necessary to the 
interests of the whole people. So the result 
generally is that he votes the whole party ticket. 
And so it will be, as long as we insist on operat- 
ing everything by popular election. The prac- 
tical question is, each year, not as to the respon- 
sibility of individuals, but as to the defeat of the 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 49 

grand old " party." Nearly always, with very 
few exceptions, the old political charger, when 
he hears the sound of the old political trumpet, 
springs into the old line, with his old comrades 
in battle, and goes through the old evolutions of 
the political parade-ground. Individual officials 
are then too unimportant to call for individual 
notice. Although the citizen may not in the 
past have altogether approved the acts of of- 
ficials of his own party, or of his own party lead- 
ers, yet there he is, face to face with the alterna- 
tive of voting with his political friends or with 
his political enemies. The result is, as a rule, he 
stands by his friends. And most men approve 
his so doing. However much we may, in the- 
ory, admire and approve independence of po- 
litical thought and action, yet in practice most 
men also admire, quite as much if not more, loy- 
alty to political friends. With the large major- 
ity of men the last feeling generally controls 
their political action. In the heat of the great 
election contests it becomes a question of success 
or failure between one ? s friends and enemies ; a 
question of records and histories, of great and 
glorious political memories, of great and glorious 
political parties. 

The result is that it becomes practically im- 
4 



50 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

possible to hold any one individual responsible 
for his individual acts. Individual responsibility 
is in effect destroyed. The destruction of the 
responsibility of single individuals virtually de- 
stroys official responsibility altogether. 

Men talk of the responsibility of "party." 
But what does it amount to in practice? Its 
individual members, and its leaders, are continu- 
ally changing. If some one prominent man at 
any time becomes unpopular, and his unpopular- 
ity is too great, he is, for a time, or perhaps per- 
manently, sent to the rear. And then when the 
next election day comes, it is again a question 
of great parties and great principles. The ques- 
tion of single men again falls into oblivion. No 
doubt if a party is so indiscreet as to put in 
nomination, for some very prominent office, some 
very obnoxious man, citizens may, in sporadic in- 
stances, vote against such single men. And the 
fear of such action does, no doubt, operate to some 
extent to prevent glaring official misconduct in 
some individual instances. But, in general, the 
responsibility of individual officials for individual 
action is, and necessarily must be, ignored. 

8. The system corrupts official action and our 
entire political life. 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 51 

The only sound principle which should govern 
official action, as most men will agree, is that 
every public official should perform each official 
act, to the best of his ability, with a view only 
to the law and his official duty. 

In practice, that becomes, under our present 
system, largely impossible. 

Especially the appointments to the highest pub- 
lic offices necessarily are made, and necessarily 
will be made, largely with a view to interests that 
are really personal. The men who make the ap- 
pointments are themselves the creatures of these 
election organizations. Assuming, then, that they 
have very upright purposes, they generally think 
that it is really required by public interests that 
the elections should be carried by the organiza- 
tions to which they belong. They reason that 
the men of their own organization are quite as 
competent public servants as the men of hos- 
tile organizations. They know that they cannot 
keep their own organizations in efficient form for 
political work, unless they distribute the public 
offices among their own political friends. At 
the same time, the number of public offices is 
very limited, and the number of applicants for 
those offices is very large. The result is, that 
the leaders of the successful organization fill ex- 



52 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

isting vacancies with their own political adher- 
ents; and they use their power without much 
limit to make vacancies for the purpose, where 
vacancies do not already exist. 

So far as to appointments to public office. 

But how is it as to official action? 

At every turn, the action of public officials is 
largely influenced by the pressure of political 
friends. Government contracts are given to po- 
litical friends. The performance of these con- 
tracts is judged and enforced by political friends, 
and not by impartial public servants. 

These are not, however, the worst results. 

Whenever the minds of public officials become 
familiar, as they soon do, with the idea that pub- 
lic appointments and public acts are not to be 
regulated solely with a view to public interests, 
but that they are to be used in any degree for 
what are termed party purposes (which is an- 
other name for personal purposes), the next step 
is one often and easily taken. Our public offi- 
cials, legislative and administrative, are continu- 
ally called on to act on matters that affect very 
large amounts of property and money. It is not 
often the case, as I believe, that the individuals 
whose interests are affected by such official ac- 
tion directly approach the public official himself 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 53 

with the offer of a direct money payment for 
any specific official act. They go to the pow- 
erful politicians, and employ them. The politi- 
cians secure the necessary official action, often 
without paying, or agreeing to pay, for it in 
money. The official is virtually their own creat- 
ure. He is in their power. He holds, by their 
grace, not only his present office, but his chances 
of future preferment. Their wishes are to him 
virtually commands. When money is paid, it is 
paid, generally, or often, to the politician who 
holds no office. Often, perhaps generally, there 
is no express understanding that any money is 
to be paid to the official. Such an understand- 
ing is too dangerous. But the official action is 
secured, and very often by the use of money. In 
law, the crime of money bribery is not commit- 
ted. The official has only obliged a powerful 
political friend. The effect, so far as the inter- 
ests of the people are concerned, is the same as 
if the official himself had been directly bribed 
with money. 

The same result is easily and frequently accom- 
plished in a different way. What are termed the 
"legitimate political expenses" of the different 
political organizations and candidates in election 
campaigns require very large amounts of money. 



54 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

Private individuals who have business affairs 
that require, and are expected to require, action 
on the part of public officials, therefore make it 
a regular practice to contribute large sums of 
money for what are termed " political purposes ;" 
that is, for bands of music, political meetings, 
and the many and large lawful expenses of a 
political campaign as now conducted. The mere 
printing of election tickets is a comparatively 
insignificant item. It is only one item, which 
comes at the end of the great campaign. The 
larger expenses of the campaign, the recruiting, 
organizing, and drilling of the armies, the con- 
ventions and processions, the brass bands and 
the mass meetings, the pay of the state, county, 
city, town, and ward politicians through the 
months before the single day of the election, in 
fact through all the years, those are the things 
that cost, those are the things that make the 
main burden of our present political contests, 
amounting each year to millions of dollars. 
These amounts have to be paid b} r some one. 
By whom ? They are paid largely by the large 
moneyed enterprises whose interests are exposed 
to the action of public officials. It is a regular 
practice — regularly understood. 

Now, when a man who has made large money 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS, 55 

contributions, to secure the nomination, or elec- 
tion, of high public officials, conies before them, 
or their friends, for official action, what is the 
probability as to what the action of the officials 
will be I 

Yet men do not call that bribery. There is 
no direct agreement for any payment of money, 
for a specific vote or act, or for any vote or act. 

But, so far as concerns the interests of the 
people, what is the difference in the result? 

And does the system, which makes such a 
state of things necessary and certain, tend to 
promote public purity, or does it put a premium 
on corruption ? The ordinary idea of corruption 
is one of mere pecuniary corruption. But what 
difference does it make, in results, whether you 
buy official action with private money or with 
a public office ? Or what is the difference in 
principle ? There are, no doubt, cases of direct 
bribery. But its amount is, in my belief, greatly 
overrated. Even under our present system, the 
large majority of public officials, I am convinced, 
in the large majority of cases, intend to do as 
well as they know how, and as well as circum- 
stances will admit. 

But a vast amount of what is, in its effects, 
money bribery, is accomplished without the par- 



56 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

ties to the offence being thoroughly aware of 
the real nature of their acts. 

Vast amounts of money, amounts running into 
the millions, are paid each year for the support 
of these great election armies. The men who 
make the payments expect, and get, an equiva- 
lent for their money. They are our shrewdest 
business men. They pay, because it pays. 

The results of these great popular elections 
now depend, necessarily, largely on the use of 
money. The decision of one of these great con- 
tests may at any time narrow itself to the mere 
obtaining of a few thousand or a few hundred 
votes, in some single state, or some single city. 
With such prizes depending on the result, the 
temptation to use large amounts of money for 
corrupt purposes is very great. All well-informed 
men are well aware that large amounts of money 
are so used. It is not necessary that they be 
used in paying money for votes to the citizens. 
Payment to the professional politicians who lead, 
who control votes by the thousands and millions, 
serves a better purpose, and is not a violation of 
the law. Virtually public offices by the thou- 
sands, and votes of citizens by the millions, are 
bought and sold for monev. What need is there 
for any one to pay money to individual voters, 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 57 

for a few hundred individual votes, when, by 
buying a nomination from, the leaders of one of 
the great " parties," it is possible to purchase over 
five million votes in a single lot. In a recent po- 
litical "campaign" we have seen great excitement 
over the purchase of voters in " blocks of five." 
But what are we to say as to the purchase of 
voters in "blocks" of five million? 

Any single one of these features of our polit- 
ical system, taken by itself, might not work re- 
sults so serious. 

It is the combination that does the mischief, 
and makes it so great. The law fails to provide 
any organization whereby the people can act to- 
gether, as one people, in the selection of its high- 
est public servants. Factions are therefore formed 
outside of the law ; and the citizens are compelled 
to act with some faction. Then comes this mass 
of election work, with its secrecy, its necessary use 
of large amounts of money, even if the uses are 
only legitimate, and its employment of dirty men 
and dirty methods. The use of money in elec- 
tions has with us at all times been productive of 
evil results. The evils have, however, of late 
years greatly increased, with the increase in the 
amount of election work and the increase in the 
people's wealth. The use of money in carrying 



58 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

elections has now reached very large proportions. 
It is a rule, now almost universal, that every can- 
didate for a public office, unless in the poor rural 
districts, has to pay an "assessment" for the pur- 
pose of meeting his share of the expenses of 
these great campaigns. The mere cost of print- 
ing tickets is comparatively a trifle. The assess- 
ments are always said to be for meeting only 
expenses that are " legitimate." Every sensible 
man knows that in one form or another, directly 
or indirectly, these assessments are used to buy 
nominations and votes. And as to its effect on 
the administration of public affairs, and on the 
public conscience, the one is about as bad as the 
other. Well-informed men well understand that 
our so-called popular elections, as they are now 
conducted, virtually amount in many cases to a 
mere sale of public offices to the highest bidder. 
But it need not go so far as that. Here in the 
city of Xew York we have every year the nom- 
inations, which are equivalent to elections, ar- 
ranged by a few professional politicians. And 
we have to take the public servants that they 
see lit to give us. It has been often stated, 
and, as I believe, accurately, that more than once, 
when the few professional politicians who had 
the decision of nominations were unable to agree, 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 59 

they have disposed of the different public offices 
by lot. AVhen nominations are disposed of in 
that manner, and the citizen has left to him noth- 
ing but the selection between two nominations, 
when it is virtually certain, as it is in nine cases 
out of ten, that the citizen will simply accept the 
nomination made by the professionals whose lead 
he has formerly followed, what is the real value 
of this system of so-called popular election. 

Is this democratic government % 

The practical difficulties he in the enormous 
amount of this election work, its continuousness, 
its costliness, the size of the constituencies, and 
the magnitude of its prizes. It is, no doubt, the 
fact that, even under this system, the individual 
citizens have some degree of power. They, no 
doubt, have it in their power to depose one body 
of professional politicians and put another in 
their places. When one body of professionals 
too far tries the public patience, we have times 
of sudden and short popular excitement, and we 
depose some single set of professionals. In short, 
we have a revolution, followed by another period 
of quiet endurance. 

This right of revolution is practically all that 
the citizens have. But a system which gives to 
the citizens only the power of revolution, if words 



60 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

are to be used with accuracy, can hardly be 
termed " democratic." If this process of revolu- 
tion produced any substantial or lasting gain, the 
position would be different. But its result, after 
the primary spasm, is at most only the putting 
the control of public affairs in the hands of an- 
other set of office brokers. " Politics " becomes 
the art of carrying elections, largely by the use 
of corrupt means and corrupt methods. 

Meantime the professional politicians thrive — 
a few of them. But even they — the better por- 
tion of them, and among them there are very 
many deserving men — weary of this feverish, fit- 
ful fight of faction. They would much prefer, if 
they could have it, the opportunity of doing some 
useful work for the people — in the line of their 
strict official duties. They would prefer, if they 
could, to give honest work and get honest wages. 
But what can they do ? They are not free. Their 
life is one never-ending struggle to get office and 
to keep it. It is not merely a struggle between 
the professionals of the two great " parties," but 
between different factions and cliques of the same 
party. No individual official is for any long 
time sure of his place. Of one thing he is, and 
always can be, utterly certain — that is, if he lets 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 61 

alone the work of carrying elections, and merely 
gives his best time and thought to the work of his 
office — his official life will soon come to an end. 
These results will continue precisely so long as 
we continue the conditions. Precisely so long 
as we keep this political system, or its main feat- 
ures, there is no prospect of any substantial or 
lasting improvement in the administration of 
public affairs. As a rule, all men do as well as 
the system will allow. The citizens do as well as 
they can. Public officials — most of them — do as 
well as they can — as well as they can, with their 
lack of knowledge, of experience, and especially 
with their lack of time. Even the professional 
politicians who are not in office — on the whole — 
do as well as they can. One of the most powerful 
professional politicians of late years in the city 
of New York is reported to have said that he 
had during his entire political career " done all 
in his power to give the city of Is ew York good 
government." I have no doubt he spoke the 
truth. In the simple sincerity of his heart he 
unconsciously used language that might properly 
have been used by a Caesar or a Napoleon, and 
his words were in entire harmony with the facts 
of the situation. He was in his day and gener- 
ation a man of large power. He virtually made 



62 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

appointments to public office, and largely con- 
trolled the administration of public affairs. The 
citizens, each year, went decorously through the 
forms and ceremonies of what they were pleased 
to term a " popular election." They gravely went 
to the polls, took their printed lists from their 
party leaders, which they dutifully deposited in 
boxes — constructed and locked in strict accord- 
ance with the election law. Meantime Mr. John 
Kelly, w T ho more than any one man controlled 
the disposal of public affairs and the spending 
from the public purse, did, I have no doubt, do 
his best to " give the citizens of New York good 
government." For he was, as I have always 
been informed, a very honest man, and a man of 
very honest public purposes. But what could 
even he do ? Though he was a political leader, he 
was bound hand and foot to his political follow- 
ers. He was compelled — against his judgment, 
often against his wish — to give public offices to 
men whom he knew to be unfit for their places. 
It was the only way in which he could pay his 
election army; and that army had to be paid. 
He w r as a believer in what is termed "party gov- 
ernment," which means government by organ- 
ized bodies of professional electioneering agents, 
who betake themselves to the work of carrying 



THE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 63 

elections because it pays ; who are compelled by 
the force of circumstances to make it pay ; who 
will continue so to do, just so long as the work 
is so vast, so regular, and has so large prizes. 

All our highest public officials are dependent 
on, and in the power of, the professional politi- 
cians. The theory is, that they are dependent on 
the citizens, and under the control of the citizens. 
The fact is, that the power supposed to be in the 
hands of the citizens is really in the hands of the 
leaders — from time to time — of the election ar- 
mies ; men who are not selected by the people ; 
who are not controlled by the people. 

Again we come upon the great fundamental 
facts : we overburden the citizen ; we overuse 
and misuse the process of popular election ; we 
use a mistaken form of that process. 

We have now seen the practice under our pres- 
ent form of government. 

It does not in all respects conform to the the- 
ory. 

The theory is, that this political system puts 
the supreme power in the State in the hands of 
the citizen. 

The fact is, that it burdens the citizen with a 
power that he cannot use. It is utterly beyond 



64 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

his possibilities. The attempt to have the citi- 
zen take his direct personal part in the actual se- 
lection and control of a large number of public 
officials, in the governments of large peoples, 
through the large, frequent, and regular use of 
this present process of popular election, is a fail- 
ure. At first sight — as a mere theory — it seems 
quite plausible. In actual practice, when exam- 
ined in the light of our experience, it is seen to be 
radically and fundamentally unsound. It cannot 
be made to work, with large peoples, whose pub- 
lic officials must have the control of large mass- 
es of men, money, and material. It creates a 
privileged class ; it bars the best men from the 
public service ; it takes power out of the hands 
of the people ; it destroys the political freedom 
of the citizen ; it destroys the political freedom 
of the people ; it destroys official responsibility ; 
it corrupts our whole political life. 

Is there any remedy ? 

No sensible man thinks, for an instant, that 
everything can be done immediately. 

But can we not soon get some substantial gain ? 
Can we not make things somewhat better than 
they now are? Has not our political experi- 
ence of one hundred years, an experience so 
new and rich, taught us something ? Is govern- 



TIIE PRACTICAL RESULTS. 65 

ment the only thing in which we are to make 
no improvements? Here alone are we to use 
the old machinery devised by those provincials 
of 1787? 

Kemarkable their work was, no doubt. But 
they were only human beings, with absolutely no 
experience in the actual working of democratic 
government on any large scale. Is it the fact 
that we can learn nothing, and do nothing ? 

The idea is absurd. 

But what are we to do ? How are we to work 
out in practice this idea of " government by the 
people ?" 

AVe have not done it yet. Few men in this 
country, when they give the matter careful 
thought, will be ready to admit that they are 
satisfied with the present working results of this 
first experiment in the world's history, on any 
large scale, in democratic government. This 
greatest of all political problems has not yet 
been fully solved — for all time. T\Te have done 
a very creditable piece of political work — for a 
first attempt. AYe have shown that democratic 
government, even in its present crude, undevel- 
oped form, is a thing practicable ; that it can be 
made to work. AVe have made democratic gov- 
ernment, on a large scale, a practical success. 
5 



66 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

But this is only our first attempt. "We have 
merely launched the good ship Democracy, chris- 
tened her, and given her a short trial trip. Much 
work is still to be done. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CHANGES NEEDED. 

What, then, is the next stage in the evolution 
of democratic government? What is the next 
experiment in the political laboratory of the peo- 
ple of the United States ? 

The question is one of organization. When- 
ever work of any magnitude, private or public, 
is to be done by any large number of men, there 
must be organization, of one kind or another ; 
that is, the work must be divided, and subdivided ; 
the men who are to do it must be divided, and 
subdivided. Different kinds of work must be 
given to different kinds of men, having different 
kinds of ability, different training, different ex- 
perience. But, especially wherever any large 
number of men are to work together, are to co- 
operate, there must be superiors and subordi- 
nates ; some must command, some must obey ; 
otherwise the result will be anarchy and chaos. 

Especially, inasmuch as a State is a human or- 



68 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

ganism, composed of human beings, it must be 
ruled by its brain, and its brain must be in its 
head. 

Now a democratic State is not an exception to 
these general statements. In a democratic State, 
as well as in one that is termed monarchic or 
oligarchic, some men must lead, some must obey ; 
the people must have a head ; the mass of citi- 
zens must be ruled, and controlled, if the public 
work is to be done, and done well. A demo- 
cratic State is not a collection of men who are 
all equals in their positions in the State. All 
citizens should, no doubt, have equal rights under 
the law. But they cannot all hold the same po- 
sitions in the State. The points wherein a dem- 
ocratic State differs from one that is termed 
monarchic or oligarchic, is that in the demo- 
cratic State the supreme will is, or should be, the 
will of the people, instead of being the will of 
one man, or of a few men. But there must be a 
supreme will, and a strong will, controlled by a 
wise judgment, if we are to avoid anarchy and 
a great waste of strength. 

Democratic institutions are to win their way, 
if they do win it, as they will, and are now fast 
doing, for the reason, not that they attempt the 
ridiculous impossibility of making all men equal, 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 69 

not because they seek, or will be able, to reduce 
society to a dead level of mediocrity, but because 
they will, when more fully developed, give so- 
ciety a more perfect organization, will more per- 
fectly marshal its forces, will more thoroughly 
subordinate the bad social elements to the good, 
will more fully enable men to find their right 
places, will give greater security for having so- 
ciety ruled by its brains — by men of worth, in- 
stead of men of birth. The idea that democracy 
is to be a State where all men are to be masters, 
or where every man is to be his own master, 
where all men are to rule, and none to obey, is 
quite crude and erroneous. In a democratic 
State, when its evolution is more complete, men 
will be ruled as they have never yet been ruled ; 
they will obey as they have never yet been com- 
pelled to obey. Society will be ruled by a 
stronger will and a wiser judgment than ever 
before; for the will of a people is a stronger 
will, and the judgment of a people is a wiser 
judgment, than the will or judgment of any one 
individual, or faction of individuals. 

But the chief point in a democratic govern- 
ment, which is, like any other government, 
or should be, an organization of men, is how 
to get the brains at the head. Democracy, if it 



70 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

succeed, as it will, will succeed because it fur- 
nishes the best security for getting the people's 
best men at its head. In order to handle these 
great modern social forces, that are continually 
growing with the growth of men's knowledge, 
we must have better government ; society must 
have stronger and wiser control ; and that con- 
trol is to be found only in a more perfect organ- 
ization, an organization which can be had only 
from democracy. 

The question, then, is one of organization. 

The first point to be ascertained is, what are 
the chief ends, the chief practical results, that 
must be accomplished, made actual accomplished 
facts, by any government that deserves the name 
of " democratic." 

Those chief ends are, as it seems to me, three : 

1. It must secure the most full, free, and 
healthy political action on the part of the indi- 
vidual citizen. 

Taking it as a practical question, my reason 
for insisting on the fullest measure of practicable 
political action for the individual citizen is, that 
it is the best practicable way to get the best re- 
sults in the administration of public affairs, as 
well as the best way to secure the healthy devel- 
opment of the citizen and of the State. It will 
work well. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 71 

But when we say that we must secure the full- 
68< practicable measure of political activity for 
the citizen, it does not mean that his political 
functions are to be limited to his being allowed 
to put " his mark" against a few names selected 
by him from printed lists made up by the profes- 
sionals, even if the State pays the printing bills and 
puts him in a box while he " makes his mark." 

The citizen must do something more than that, 
if democratic government is to be anything other 
than a farce and a failure. 

2. It must secure the supremacy of the judg- 
ment and will of the people. 

This means something more than having an 
annual, or biennial, or quadrennial choice, by the 
individual citizens, between the tickets of differ- 
ent organizations of professional election brokers. 

Any government that deserves the name "dem- 
ocratic " must provide some simple and efficient 
means whereby the people can think — as a peo- 
ple, can form its deliberate judgment — as a peo- 
ple, and can form and utter its will — as a people, 
on precise practical public questions of both men 
and measures. 

It is not a political process of any great prac- 
tical value, to have mere periodic countings of 



72 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

noses on a selection between the " tickets " of rival 
factions of professional politicians, even if there 
be a prominent protrusion of what are termed 
political platforms, by so-called grand old politi- 
cal parties, with grand old political platitudes, 
termed " party principles," so vague that they 
mean anything or nothing. 

There must be some simple practical machinery 
whereby the people can confer, hold its common 
deliberations, at the time when it is to act, on the 
precise question, whether of men or measures, on 
which it is to act. There must be more than a 
counting of individual preferences. There must 
be the means for forming a " judgment " of " the 
people " by a process of thought — of the people. 

3. It must secure efficient administration. 

It has commonly been assumed that democratic 
government necessarily involved some degree of 
sacrifice on the score of administrative efficiency. 

This is, in my belief, a mistake. Taking it as 
a whole, with all its faults, I incline strongly to 
the opinion that our present political system, our 
particular combination of national, state, and 
local governments, as it has existed during this 
last one hundred years, has produced better prac- 
tical results, taking them altogether, than have 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 73 

been produced by any system of political organiza- 
tion thus far known, in the same space of time. 
Its faults have, no doubt, been great and glaring. 
We have not reached perfection. Yet even the 
degree of political freedom that we have thus far 
enjoyed, and the imperfect organization that we 
have thus far effected, have, as it seems to me, 
given us remarkable practical results. When we 
shall have continued our experiment, in the light 
of what we can now learn from our past experi- 
ence, when this hard-headed, practical American 
people once seriously undertakes to concentrate 
its thought (as it is now beginning to do) on the 
present phase of the democratic problem, then 
our results will be better. Then we shall — in 
time — demonstrate the fact, by fresh experi- 
ments, with new and improved political machi- 
nery, that for the purposes of mere administra- 
tion, there is no form of government so efficient 
as a free democracy. 

Any government, therefore, I say, that de- 
serves the name of " democratic " must secure, 
with other results, that of efficient administra- 
tion. 

That means, especially, the selection of fit men 
at the head. 

The men of importance in any government are 



T4 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

the men at its head. They are, of all men, the 
ones who must be able, honest, and of large ex- 
perience. We have been in the habit of virtu- 
ally assuming that the administration of pub- 
lic affairs required only ordinary men, men of 
ordinary ability, of ordinary honesty, and ordi- 
nary experience. And it has been often assumed 
by political writers that democratic government 
means government by any one and every one, 
turn and turn about — in short, that it means 
government hy the masses. 

Democratic government, as I understand the 
term, means government by the people's brain. 
It means that the administration of public affairs 
shall be in accordance with the best judgment 
that can be formed by the entire people, by its 
best blood and fibre. It means government by 
the best men. 

My reason for my confidence in democratic in- 
stitutions is, that, in my judgment, the political 
experience of the world, and especially of this 
country, has now established that, upon the 
whole, in the long run, no other form of gov- 
ernment gives so much stability, so much vigor, 
gives security so strong for the selection of the 
fittest men for the highest public places as will 
the democratic, provided, however, the people be 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 75 

so organized as to secure real freedom of thought 
and action. 

This is the point of essential importance, the 
having strong men, men of large natural capacity, 
with the thorough training that comes only from 
large experience, at the government's head. Get 
the right men at the head, and they will see to 
the subordinates. As to that we need give our- 
selves no uneasiness. The point of importance 
is the getting the right men at the head. 

To recapitulate, then, the chief practical re- 
sults which must be accomplished by any gov- 
ernment that deserves the name of " democratic," 
are three : 

1. It must secure the most full, free, and healthy 
political action on the part of the individual citi- 
zen. 

2. It must secure the supremacy of the peo- 
ple's will and the people's judgment. 

3. It must secure efficient administration. 
With a view to the realization, in practice, of 

these ends, let us next see whether some politi- 
cal facts, as to the practical working of demo- 
cratic institutions, have not now been established 
— by experience. 

I submit that at least three such facts are now 
so established. 



76 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

They are, as it seems to me, these : 

I. The public meeting is the organ for the for- 
mation and declaration of the people's judgment 
and the people's will. 

This statement, in its general terms, might be 
generally accepted, as a statement of a theoret- 
ical principle, as to a people's action on measures. 

It is equally accurate as a statement of the 
proper practice, in the formation of anything that 
deserves the name of a " judgment," as to men. 

Let us consider the nature of the process, and 
we shall easily understand its reason and its ne- 
cessity. 

Wherever any number of individuals, having 
common interests, need to agree on a common 
course of action, the simple, natural, and easy 
method of reaching that agreement, if they are 
reasonable beings, is for them to meet and con- 
fer. If they are not reasonable beings, then they 
are not fit for democratic institutions, and are 
not here to be taken into account. But if they 
are, if they meet and confer, they will in time 
almost invariably come to an agreement. Each 
individual will have his own individual ideas. 
Those ideas will have to be harmonized. Indi- 
viduals will have to make concessions. The easi- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 77 

est and quickest way — in short, the only way that 
is really practicable and effectual — by which they 
can reach this result of agreement, is for them 
to meet and confer, to concede and agree. That 
is the way reasonable men do in their private 
affairs. That is the way reasonable men must 
do in public affairs. Each individual will have 
a reasonable opportunity to utter his own views, 
to hear the views of other men, and to change 
his own. In time, the entire body is reasonably 
certain to agree on a common conclusion. 

It is virtually assumed by nearly all writers 
on democratic institutions that men of different 
ways of thinking must always continue to differ ; 
that they must hold to their own individual ideas 
to the end ; that men holding like ideas must 
combine in factions, and must have a great con- 
test once in a certain or uncertain term of years 
for the possession of the highest public offices 
and the supreme control of public affairs. 

This assumption utterly ignores the limita- 
tions of human minds, and human knowledge ; 
the fact that all men are ignorant, one-sided, 
and liable to error ; that most of them, if they 
are placed under the right influences, wish to 
correct their errors ; that all of them, if they do 
not wish it, ought to correct those errors ; and 



78 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

that the furnishing the opportunity for men to 
learn the ideas of others, and thereby to correct 
their own errors, is the chief end to be attained 
under a free democratic government by free po- 
litical processes. 

To accomplish that end there is as yet no 
known practicable process for any large number 
of citizens, other than that of the public meeting. 
Without that process — keeping the individual 
citizens separate, restricting them to the oppor- 
tunity of casting a secret ballot separately, with- 
out the opportunity for free public conference, at 
the time they take public action — the citizen is 
restricted to the right to utter his own separate 
individual present preference between two or 
more special men or measures proposed before- 
hand by single men or single factions. The very 
essence of democratic free thought is wanting. 
The most valuable of all the processes possible 
to a free people is virtually disused. The citizen 
and the people are both deprived of the chief 
opportunity that can be provided by democratic 
institutions, for political instruction and political 
thought. They become virtually the puppets in 
a political Punch and Judy, pulled backwards 
and forwards by professional politicians. The 
most essential features of a free, healthy polit- 
ical life are lost. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. TO 

This is so even when we are dealing only with 
the citizens of a small political body, like the 
people of a village or a small town. 

But when we come to consider the cases of the 
large peoples — the peoples of the large cities and 
states and of the nation, where it is necessary for 
large numbers of men to come to a common con- 
clusion as to a course of common action, as to 
large public affairs and large public interests — 
the utter impossibility of having anything like the 
formation of a common judgment — by a people — 
as to the real merits of any precise question, of 
either public measures or public men, by these 
so-called popular elections, without the represent- 
ative public meeting, becomes grotesquely ap- 
parent. Especially is this so if these elections 
are frequent and for large numbers of officers. 
It then becomes utterly impossible for the large 
majority of citizens to get any considerable 
amount of knowledge as to the real merits of 
specific practical public questions. Even the 
most intelligent, the ablest, the most highly 
educated, and the most thoughtful individual 
citizen will nearly always be unable to get the 
knowledge of the special facts of special cases 
which is absolutely indispensable to enable him 
to form anything that deserves the name of a 



80 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

judgment — on its merits — of any special question. 
He can, no doubt, join in a party procession, fol- 
io w a party banner, pound on a party drum, and 
blow a party trumpet ; but to form a calm judg- 
ment, even of one single individual, on any spe- 
cific question, by this process of an annual con- 
flict for place between two or more great armies 
of professional politicians, is an impossibility. 

What process, then, is there that will enable a 
people of large numbers really to think as a peo- 
ple—to weigh the merits as a people — of public 
men and public measures ? 

There is only one such process — that is, only 
one has yet been found, tried, and proved by ex- 
perience — and that is the process of the public 
meeting. 

This public meeting will be a meeting of all 
the citizens, meeting in their own persons, if their 
numbers be not too large to allow them to meet 
and act conveniently in one body. If, however, 
their numbers be too large to allow them con- 
veniently to meet and act as one body in their 
own persons, then they must meet and act in 
the persons of their representatives. When the 
number of citizens who are to take common po- 
litical action is more than about five hundred, 
they must be divided into smaller primary dis- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 81 

tricts, and the citizens in the primary districts 
must meet in public, choose their representatives, 
and the representatives so chosen must there- 
after meet in one body, and take action as one 
body for the entire people. 

For instance : Take the case of a people hav- 
ing a population of one million. That would 
ordinarily mean with us a number of voting cit- 
izens of about two hundred thousand. If this 
people go through the form of choosing a large 
number of public officials each year through the 
ordinary process of the so-called popular election, 
by written or printed ballots, cast by the citizens 
separately, without using the public meeting, then 
it can, by possibility, accomplish nothing but the 
making a selection, by a mere majority of indi- 
viduals, between the nominees submitted before- 
hand of two or more strong organizations. We 
have tried this experiment now for many years, 
and its results are well known and uniform. The 
process of election becomes merged in the proc- 
ess of nomination, and the process of nomina- 
tion falls, sooner or later, into the hands of pro- 
fessionals. 

Suppose, on the other hand, that this people 
of two hundred thousand citizens be divided into 
five hundred primary bodies in that number of 
6 



82 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

primary districts, giving four hundred citizens to 
each district, and that the citizens in each district 
came together in one public meeting and chose a 
delegate ; that then the five hundred delegates so 
chosen met in one public meeting and chose a 
chief executive official or a delegate to a state or 
national legislature. In that case the citizens in 
each district would have at least the opportunity 
to make their own free choice of a delegate ; citi- 
zens would have at least the opportunity to make 
new nominations at the time on the spot ; they 
would have something more than the mere oppor- 
tunity to choose between two or three " tickets " 
presented beforehand. A delegate so chosen by 
a majority, or, better, by two thirds, of the citizens 
so met, could be properly said to be the " choice " 
of the district ; and those delegates, meeting in 
one assembly, would have at least the opportunity 
to make something that might properly be termed 
the free choice of that entire people. 

It is to be noted that such a procedure would 
involve merely the adoption, under the law, of 
the same machinery for the action of the whole 
people that has largely been already adopted, 
outside the law, for the action of our present 
political parties. It is the well-known, well-tried 
machinery of action by delegates, where it is im- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 83 

possible or impracticable for the principals to act 
in their own persons. 

Is it not plain, therefore, that the only means 
practicable by which anything can be had that 
can be properly termed an expression of the 
w * will of the people " is the public meeting of 
citizens or their delegates ? 

But I go further. 

Not only is the public meeting the proper 
process by which a people should form its com- 
mon will, but it is the only process by which it 
can form anything that can properly be termed 
a " common judgment," a " judgment of the 
people." 

Again, let us consider the actual working proc- 
ess of an ordinary public meeting, like the simple, 
old-fashioned town meeting. 

If the question be one of passing a town ordi- 
nance or voting a town expenditure, if the cit- 
izens meet, the action of the meeting is not 
limited to the simple acceptance or rejection of 
some measure proposed beforehand. Amend- 
ments are offered. "Wholly new measures are 
proposed. Public debate is had. Men utter their 
individual opinions. Reasonable men change 
their opinions. Many men then form their opin- 
ions for the first time — that is, on the precise 






84 



THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 



question on which action must be had. Ex- 
tremists are compelled to make concessions, 
though they may have great weight in forming 
the final judgment. In the end the common 
agreement is generally a compromise between 
the views of extremists. The result reached by 
this process of compromise and agreement is 
nearly always something very different from the 
views of any single individual, or of any single 
faction, as those views had existed beforehand. 
This result, no doubt, may not be the wisest pos- 
sible result. It may, possibly, not be as wise a 
result as would be obtained by adopting, bodily, 
the judgment of some single individual or of 
some single faction. But it will be a new result, 
the result of a new process — a process that can 
properly be termed co-operative thought by a cor- 
porate, co-operative brain. Such a result will be 
properly termed a " judgment of the people." 

So, too, when popular action is to be taken in 
the selection of a man, to fill any public office. 
The ordinary parliamentary practice in any pub- 
lic meeting would be to act on candidates for 
different public offices one at a time — at least 
to consider the candidates for each office sep- 
arately from the candidates for other offices. 
Debate can be had. It will be possible to have 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. fi- r > 

something like the deliberation of a whole peo- 
ple, at the time the voting is done, on the fitness 
of single men for the work of single offices. 
Many citizens will be, before the meeting, wholly 
uninformed as to the different candidates — their 
occupations, reputations, and characters. Citi- 
zens who have this knowledge will be able to 
give it to others who have it not. In this way 
it will be possible to get a process that can prop- 
erly be termed " thought of the people" on the 
fitness of different candidates. The result of that 
thought will be something that can properly be 
termed a " judgment of the people." 

Now, can that result be had without this 
process ? 

But I go further. 

Not only is the public meeting the only ma- 
chinery whereby we can obtain a " judgment of 
the people," but in the large majority of cases 
the judgment of the people thus formed, espe- 
cially the judgment of any large people, will be 
wiser than the judgment of any single man or 
single faction. 

Public questions are large, many-sided, and 
often involve the consideration of wide masses 
of facts. But the knowledge of each individual, 
as far as it bears on public questions, is generally 



86 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

comparatively narrow and scanty. Each indi- 
vidual will need information, of a kind that he 
will, in general, be able to get only from other 
men. 

Public action on public questions can seldom 
be taken wisely by mere adherence to previously 
formed ideas, even if they be formed with great 
care. The wisdom of a public measure gener- 
ally depends on careful consideration of diverse 
private and public interests. Decisions of such 
questions, if they are to be wise, must be made 
after a calm, careful weighing of varied individ- 
ual views. The judgments of single individuals 
are generally made on views that are partial and 
one-sided, on insufficient knowledge and informa- 
tion. In order to get large, many-sided views of 
large public questions, it is essential to have the 
conference of many minds. 

It is often urged, as a defence of what is termed 
" party government," that men differ in tempera- 
ment — that some are conservative, and others are 
eager for change. It is then inferred that these 
two classes of men should be formed into sep- 
arate and antagonistic organizations, and that 
these antagonistic organizations should from 
time to time have a contest for the possession 
of public offices and the control of public affairs. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 87 

I deny that it is possible to divide any com- 
munity into two factions, the individual members 
of each of which will agree in their judgments 
(if they have formed any) on all public questions. 
But if the citizens could be so divided, even then, 
I submit, such a division would not well serve 
public interests. 

Public interests demand, not that those two 
classes of individuals, assuming that they exist, 
should be separated into two hostile political 
camps, but that they should be brought together 
into pne common organization, in order that they 
may be led to co-operate, to confer, and agree — as 
to the course that is most wise, which is presum- 
ably not the extreme view of either class, but a 
mean view between the two extremes. 

But that is not all. 

Assuming that it is possible for the individual 
citizen to form an intelligent judgment on many 
practical public questions, the citizens, on the 
same questions, will divide on different lines. In 
forming these large factions, therefore, which are 
commonly termed " parties," the only thing that 
is practicable, even as to single questions, is to 
select some " issue," as it is termed, which is very 
general, into which there must generally enter 
some question of a moral or sentimental aspect, 



THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 



which will serve as a battle-cry and rouse the 
masses. But the great majority of public ques- 
tions are simply questions of prosaic, matter-of- 
fact business — mainly questions of raising and 
spending the public money and doing very pro- 
saic work. The result is that it is, in the large 
majority of cases, impossible by these party con- 
flicts to get an expression of even the opinions 
of individual citizens as to any specific practical 
questions. Practical questions are questions of 
fact and detail. They must be carefully con- 
sidered in detail. Specific measures must be 
proposed, discussed, and amended. There is no 
way in which this work can be done, or by which 
any question can receive the common considera- 
tion of any large number of minds, other than 
by the process, not of conflict, but of conference. 
There must be, not a struggle between armies 
for public place, but co-operative thought, of 
men of different ways of thinking, in calm com- 
mon conference. Differences must be harmo- 
nized, not increased. Whatever conflict there is 
must be the conflict of ideas, not of persons. 

Xow consider what generally takes place when- 
ever any reasonable number of reasonable men, 
who are not under the necessity of serving per- 
sonal ends, and who are not influenced by sen- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 89 

timental considerations, come together for com- 
mon conference as to common interests. There 
is nothing which will so stimulate the thought 
of the individual as conference with other rea- 
sonable men. Each individual is reasonably cer- 
tain to utter his best individual thought. Its 
merits will be judged by the wiser judgment of 
others. The common judgment of the body, 
formed by common agreement, in selecting from 
the ideas of individuals, will be reasonably cer- 
tain, if there be time, to combine the best results 
of the thought of the individuals. This common 
judgment will be the fruit of nature's process, 
the survival of the fittest, by natural selection, 
by the common judgment, from the struggle of 
ideas. 

Any other process than this one of co-opera- 
tive conference deprives reasoning men of the 
natural, simple means of influencing other rea- 
soning men by reasonable arguments. The pres- 
ent system of party conflicts assumes that men 
who differ in their individual ideas on prominent 
public questions are to continue to differ; that 
they are tojbe kept asunder; that they are not 
to change their ideas, are not to learn. 

Now the essential fundamental idea of demo- 
cratic government is, that the State is to be a 



90 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

government of ideas and laws, not of persons; 
that, therefore, the machinery of government is 
to furnish the most simple and direct means 
whereby the soundness of ideas is to be tested ; 
that the community is not to be governed in ac- 
cordance with the ideas or the wishes of any one 
man, or of any one faction ; but that the govern- 
ing ideas must be the wisest ideas of the whole 
people, thinking and acting with freedom, as one 
whole people. 

Consider what are the ordinary chances of ac- 
tion by delegates of any people of large numbers 
— provided those delegates are freely chosen, and 
are free to act on their common judgment. Even 
the men whom we now send to our national 
Congress are m&ny of them able men. They 
are generally men without special knowledge 
or special experience for their special work. But 
suppose that they were free to take the time 
they needed, and to use their own best judgment 
as to the measures best fitted to serve public in- 
terests ; suppose that they were free from what 
are termed " party," really personal, considera- 
tions. Is it not reasonably certain that the com- 
mon judgment of that body, assisted, as they 
would be, by outside discussion in the public 
press, would be a reasonably sound judgment ? 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 91 

But most of those men are not the free choice 
of the people. I venture to think that the peo- 
ple, if it made a free choice of its own, would se- 
lect a better class of men than is selected by the 
professionals of either "party." The people of 
the United States could easily, at this day, with 
its larger numbers and larger experience, select 
an abler body of men than the men who formed 
the Constitutional Convention of 1787. That 
convention had among its members three or four 
great individuals. But, as a body, it could easily 
be equalled to-day by a body of men really chosen 
by the peoples of the different Congressional dis- 
tricts. I do not mean, or think, that the choice 
of the people of each district would invariably 
and inevitably be the ablest or the wisest single 
man in the district. But let the citizens have 
their heads, and let them meet in their free pub- 
lic meeting, and, as a rule, in the large majority 
of cases, they would be very certain to select as 
their delegates men of strength. Xo others 
could stand the tests. The body of delegates so 
selected would be, as certainly as, we can make 
things certain by mere human means, a very 
strong body of men. It would be a body rep- 
resenting varied interests, and varied shades of 
individual opinion. If they could be free, and 



92 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

could take time for common deliberate action — 
not for party contests — would there not be a 
reasonable certainty, as human certainties go, of 
reasonably wise results ? 

At least, should we not probably get wiser re- 
sults than we now get from these annual peren- 
nial election campaigns ? 

Are they processes of thought ? I grant fight- 
ing with ballots is better than fighting with bul- 
lets. It is a process one degree higher in the 
evolution of political processes than civil war in 
the old form. Yet it is, in fact, a new form of 
civil war; no doubt a form sanctioned by the 
law, as the law now exists ; but it is essentially 
a contest for place between persons, not a search 
for the truth in the realm of ideas. 

I say, then, that the public meeting of a whole 
people, in the persons of its delegates, chosen 
freely, thinking freely, acting freely, is the ma- 
chinery most certain, as a practical machinery, 
to give us the people's wisest judgment on prac- 
tical public questions. 

I do not assert that the action of peoples taken 
in their public meeting will invariably be wise. 
Peoples, like individuals, will make their errors 
of thought and action. 

I do say, however, that in the large majority 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 93 

of instances, the greatest practical security for 
obtaining a wise judgment on actual public 
measures is to be found in the use, at all stages 
of popular action, on both public measures and 
public men, of the public meeting. 

As illustrations of the accuracy of these state- 
ments, I need here only point to two pieces of 
political work from our own political experience : 
the formation of our national Constitution, and 
the body of constructive political legislation 
passed by our national Congress at the very be- 
ginning of our political life, under that Constitu- 
tion, whereby the national government was put 
into operation. Those two pieces of work I 
submit to the judgment of reasonable men, as 
examples of what can be accomplished by the 
simple process of common deliberation between 
men having the w T idest differences of individual 
opinion. The study of the proceedings of the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787 is most in- 
structive. The individual members of that con- 
vention had the largest divergence of individual 
views as to what should be the form of federal 
union which they should recommend. They 
came together without authority to form a na- 
tional government. When they met, it is safe 
to say that hardly one of them had the most 



94 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

remote conception of anything like the scheme 
of political organization on which they finally 
agreed, or of anything like a single national gov- 
ernment for a single people. If they had met 
as the members of two rival political parties en- 
gaged in a continual struggle for the possession 
of public place, it is doubtful if they would have 
come to any agreement as to any constitution. 
Fortunately they were free. Each individual 
held his individual views. He uttered them. 
Many of them he changed. Agreement came, 
first as to single points, single clauses, and single 
articles. The combined result, made by putting 
together those separate parts, did not, in all re- 
spects, commend itself to the judgment of even 
any one individual. But the individual members 
agreed on that combined result for the reason 
that public interests demanded that they should 
agree on something — and they could agree on 
nothing else. Even after the Constitution was 
framed, many men who took part in its construc- 
tion had the gravest doubts as to the possibility 
of its being made a working success. 

Then came the organizing of the government 
under the Constitution. That, too, was accom- 
plished by the same process of selection and agree- 
ment. But this work, too, was done by men 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 95 

who were free ; who were not under the pressure 
of factional passions and factional interests. 

Better work can be done now by using the 
same process. 

Why not? 

The whole system of popular election, as it is 
now framed, rests on an unsound principle — the 
assumption that the individual citizen can take 
a direct personal part in the direction of the 
public affairs of large peoples. The idea is, that 
if the highest public officials, the members of 
the popular assembly or of the legislature, as it 
is commonly called, are elected at frequent in- 
tervals by the direct vote of the citizens, each 
individual citizen has the opportunity to pass his 
individual judgment on the conduct of the offi- 
cial, and re-elect the official, or elect some other 
man in his stead, according to the nature of that 
individual judgment. 

In the public affairs of the small peoples, the 
villages and towns, and in the public affairs of 
the smaller electoral districts, in short, as to all 
matters that come before what may be called 
the primary public meetings — the political units 
in city, state, and national affairs — the individual 
citizen can take his direct personal part. 

When, however, it comes to the affairs of the 



96 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

larger peoples, the individual citizen must act in 
the person of his representatives ■; his direct per- 
sonal action must be limited to his action in his 
local district meeting, in what may be termed 
the people's primaries. 

If it were possible for him, under this specious 
form of direct popular election, by the mere 
counting of individuals, to pass a judgment of 
approval, or disapproval, on the policy of the peo- 
ple's representatives, it would not be desirable. 
For no mere individual citizen is qualified to pass 
such a judgment. He cannot have the necessary 
knowledge of the facts ; nor can he get the nec- 
essary time for thought. On the other hand, the 
formation of any such judgment is not possible. 
The attempt to get such a result necessarily re- 
sults in failure. It puts on the citizen a burden 
that he cannot possibly carry. It puts on him a 
duty that would require his entire time and that 
even then he could not accomplish. The attempt 
to work out that idea in practice brings into ex- 
istence this large amount of election work which, 
as our experience has demonstrated, results in 
putting the selection and control of our highest 
public officials in the hands of the election brok- 
ers, and destroys the political freedom of both 
citizen and people. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. M 

I do not say that the use of the public meet- 
ing, of and by itself, would put an end to the 
power of the professional politician, and make 
the citizen and the people free. 

To accomplish that result it will be necessary, 
as I shall try to show later, to give up this entire 
system of tenure by election, and to so cut down 
the number of elective offices as to reduce the 
amount of election work to a point which will 
insure good administration, and put the control 
of affairs in the hands of the people. 

But what I do say is, that, in order to get any- 
thing that can be correctly termed an expression 
of the people's judgment, or the people's will, on 
any question, Ave must use, at every stage, the 
public meeting. 

That is the first fact as to the practical work- 
ing of democratic institutions, that is, in my be- 
lief, now established by our political experience. 

II, Administration must have one head, 
That means, that at the head of every admin- 
istrative office and department there must be 
some one man, who shall have the selection, the 
control, and the removal of his own subordinates ; 
and that all the heads of administrative offices 
or departments in the administrative service of 
7 



98 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

a people, the people of a single town, or city, or 
state, or nation, shall, in like manner, be directly 
under the control of, and responsible to, a mayor, 
governor, or president — in other words, to some 
one executive head. 

This fact is now pretty generally conceded by 
practical men who have had any considerable 
experience with affairs and men. 

In the earlier rudimentary stages of the devel- 
opment of democratic institutions, it was gener- 
ally assumed that administrative power, in order 
to secure the people against its tyrannical abuse, 
must be divided among several individuals or 
bodies. It was considered dangerous to concen- 
trate power in the hands of single men. 

This assumption was not strange, in view of 
the experience of mankind with hereditary, irre- 
sponsible kings. 

It has, however, now been established, by ex- 
perience, that the best security against the abuse 
of power is in its concentration. I insist, as 
strongly as any one can, that the chief executive 
must be selected by the people ; that he must be 
responsible to the people ; and that his responsi- 
bility must be thorough and constant. 

But if he is so selected, and is so held respon- 
sible, then I say that human experience has now 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 00 

i 

made it matter of clear and certain demonstra- 
tion that full security for vigorous and honest 
administration can be bad only under a single 
bead ; that is, the honest and efficient adminis- 
tration of the affairs of any people, small or 
large, can be secured only under the control of 
single men, who are directly responsible to the 
entire people. How this responsibility to the peo- 
ple can be secured will be considered later. But, 
with that responsibility properly secured, then, I 
say, vigor, efficiency, and honesty can be effec- 
tually secured only under the one-man system. 

The reason of this, too, is to be found in the 
imperfections of human nature. If men were 
perfect, they would do their work well under 
any system. But most men, if we are to secure 
the best work of which they are capable, require 
the spur of undivided responsibility. They need 
to feel that they are themselves to have, alone, 
the credit for good work, and the blame and 
penalty for bad work. Moreover, it is only 
proper and just that, if we are to hold a man re- 
sponsible for actual working results, we should 
give him the free selection and the full control 
of his subordinates. He must have their selec- 
tion, for he alone can know what are the precise 
qualifications required for the precise work to be 



100 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

done by any particular man of the force under 
him. Other men might possibly make better se- 
lections for themselves. JSo one but himself can 
make good selections for him. He must also 
have the power of removal, for no one can so 
well judge whether their work is done well. 

In short, it is now ascertained, by experience, 
in public affairs as well as private, that in ad- 
ministration the division of power means the 
division of responsibility, and the division of re- 
sponsibility means its destruction. Responsibil- 
ity, in order to be thorough, must be the respon- 
sibility of single men. 

We talk of the responsibility for administra- 
tion of a great political party. We might almost 
as well talk of the responsibility of a swarm of 
bees. 

That brings us to the question how we are to 
secure the responsibility of single men to the 
whole people. 

To that question the answer is given in the 
statement of the next principle. 

It is 

III. The popular assembly should have the 
supreme control of the chief executive and of 
its own members. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 101 

Let us separate this statement into its two 
parts, and consider them separately. 

And first let us consider the question of its 
control of the chief executive. 

The selection of the chief executive, it would 
be generally conceded by all believers in demo- 
cratic institutions, should be made by the whole 
people. 

If the considerations already advanced be 
sound, then the action of the people in making 
that selection should be had in a public meeting 
of citizens or delegates. Only in that way can 
the people act on its best judgment.* 

* My single individual view is, too, that the selection of 
the chief executive, wherever it is made by an assembly of 
delegates, should be by a special assembly of delegates 
specially selected for that special act, and not by the gen- 
eral assembly, which has the general supervision and con- 
trol. In other words, the election of the chief executive 
should be by a special electoral college. 

This method, it is to be noted, is the method of which 
the framers of our national Constitution had a dim concep- 
tion, but which they failed to put in practical shape in their 
provision for an electoral college. They intended, without 
doubt, to create a body of representatives who should act 
as a body, and exercise some discretion of their own in that 
action. But they did not realize the necessity of having 
the electors meet in one body, at one time and place. In 



102 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

If a chief executive so selected had the free 
selection and control of his subordinates, and 
were at the same time himself held to a thor- 

the absence of any such meeting, experience has shown 
that, in order to insure a choice, it is necessary that there 
should be national election organizations, with candidates 
selected and named beforehand, for whom the electors shall 
vote under a previous understanding — a procedure which 
prevents all freedom of either individual or corporate ac- 
tion on the part of the electors or the electoral college. 
Without such national organizations and such previous un- 
derstanding, it would ordinarily result that no choice would 
be made by the electors, as it w r as of course desired and in- 
tended there should be.* If, however, it had been provid- 
ed that all the electors should meet in one body, then there 
would be the possibility that the electors could confer, 
could hold common deliberations, and have a free public 
discussion of the public needs, and of the right man to 
meet those needs. In a body of electors chosen by the 
process of free election, all shades of opinion w T ould be 
fairly certain to be represented. We should have as great 
security as we can have under any process of getting a man 
of ability and integrity and of administrative experience. 
Moreover, a man who should be so chosen by such a body, 
w T ould feel that he owed his position to no single man or 



* The choice by the House of Representatives, in both 
the original Constitutional provision and in the Twelfth 
Amendment, was intended only to meet contingencies. It 
was not intended to be the regular method. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 103 

ough and constant responsibility — not at annual 
intervals, but regularly and continuously — would 
not the security for efficient administration be at 
least as thorough as it is now ? Would it not be 

single faction. As far as could be secured by any mere 
process of election, he would be independent of all fac- 
tional and personal considerations and obligations. 

My belief is, too, that in such an electoral body, for the 
selection of an officer so important, there should be re- 
quired more than the vote of a mere majority, at least a 
two-thirds vote, and possibly even a larger one. There 
should, as it seems to me, be a vote which should be as 
near as is practicable to an agreement of the whole people. 
The dissenting minority should be, as nearly as possible, 
only a minority of irreconcilables. 

I do not say that this form of the process of popular elec- 
tion would invariably give us the fittest man that could be 
found for the position of chief executive. I do say, how- 
ever, that, in my individual belief, this process is the one 
which is, in the long run, more sure than any other to give 
us an efficient and safe man for that position, one who shall 
deserve and inspire the confidence of the entire people. 

Is it not, at least, as near a certainty as we can often get 
in human affairs, that a man so selected will be a better 
man, one more certain to serve public interests, than the 
men who are selected by our present methods by the pro- 
fessionals, provided he can, after his election, be, as far as 
possible, free from factional and personal control, and, as far 
as possible, under the immediate, thorough, and constant 
control of, and responsible to, the whole people ? 



104 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

as thorough as we can make it by mere human 
means ? 

To return from this digression as to the selec- 
tion of the chief executive, to the present ques- 
tion of his responsibility to, and his control by, 
the people, the whole people. 

That there should be such responsibility all 
will agree. That it should be thorough and con- 
tinuous must be conceded. 

Now our present political system, even in the- 
ory, contemplates only the enforcing this respon- 
sibility, to only the individual citizens, at fixed 
periods — at the end of fixed terms of years. 

If responsibility to the people, even only at the 
ends of terms of years, were actually secured by 
the tenure by election, there would be something 
to be said in favor of our continuing this tenure. 
But, as we have seen, we actually secure, not re- 
sponsibility to the people, but only responsibility 
to the professionals, or rather to the men who 
keep the professionals in their pay. 

How, then, are we to secure responsibility to 
the people ? 

The answer is, we must have the power of re- 
moval of the chief executive in the hands of the 
people at all times, instead of in the hands of the 
professionals at fixed terms of years. In other 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 105 

words, we must use, instead of tenure by election, 
tenure by the will of the people. 

Here, as elsewhere, the people must act in and 
by its popular assembly. 

Somewhere in the State there must be a pow- 
er that is supreme, that has the supreme control 
of the entire administrative service. 

A State, as well as an individual, must have 
one judgment, and one will, that is supreme. 
What judgment and what will can be supreme, 
with such safety, as the judgment and will of 
the whole people? Provided always that the 
people be so organized as to be able to co-oper- 
ate in the act of thinking, to have its own com- 
mon deliberations, and form its own common 
judgment. This is the very essence of democ- 
racy — the supremacy of the judgment, and the 
will, of the people. Usually all that democrats 
have considered essential in democratic institu- 
tions has been the supremacy of the wills of the 
individual citizens. They have lost sight of the 
fact that it is as essential for a people as for an 
individual, that it should be one organism, that 
thinks and reasons as one organism, and that its 
will should be subordinated to its reason, to its 
judgment. Usually, too, the will of the people 
has been hastily assumed to consist in a mere 



106 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

declaration, for or against some single man or 
measure, by a mere majority of individual voices. 

But that is a thing very different from the de- 
liberate thought of a whole people. 

Ko w there is only one way in which the judgment 
of the people, as a people, can be made supreme, 
and the will of the people, as a people, be made 
the absolutely controlling will in the State ; and 
that is by giving to the popular assembly, by a 
vote sufficiently large to insure careful delibera- 
tion (say two thirds or three fourths or possibly 
even five sixths), not only the power of making 
the laws and the general regulations for the 
transaction of the public business, but also the 
full control, including the power of removal, of 
the chief executive, at any time, for any cause in 
its judgment sufficient — not merely for a crime, 
but for neglect of duty ; for a failure in any re- 
spect, or for any reason, to give satisfactory ad- 
ministration. 

What we require at the hands of the executive 
is to execute — to do — to carry out the will of the 
people, to administer its public affairs in strict 
accordance with the laws and regulations which 
have been made by the people. 

For any one of many reasons the chief execu- 
tive may fail to give good administration. He 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 107 

may become permanently ill, or lie may become 
merely insubordinate. In any case, wherever he 
fails, for any reason, to give good administration, 
it is necessary that there should be some power 
in the State that can remove him at once. De- 
lay in such cases may be full of danger. 

Where can such a power be so well placed as 
in the hands of the popular assembly? "With 
what body of men can it be trusted with greater 
safety? What body of men can have as thor- 
ough knowledge of all the facts of the situation, 
or be so sure to make a wise judgment on those 
facts ? 

It is to be noted that this power is already 
vested, as to the President of the United States, 
in the United States Senate — by a two-thirds 
vote, for a limited purpose, on a conviction of 
u high crimes and misdemeanors." But suppose 
the chief executive is only ill, or incompetent. 
The responsibility and efficiency of subordinate 
officials amounts to nothing if the head be not 
responsible. The efficiency of the entire service 
depends mainly on the man at the head. If he 
is to give good results, he must be trusted with 
great power. But then he must be — at all times 
— not once in two or four years — under thorough 
responsibility. There is no way possible, by 



108 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

which this responsibility can "he adequately se- 
cured, except by having the power of removal, 
at all times, in the hands of some one man or 
body of men. 

This is the power that every employer has 
over every servant, wherever human affairs are 
managed on common-sense methods, in harmony 
with the laws of human nature. 

It is this fact which insures the administrative 
vigor that we find in absolute monarchies, in 
those few instances when the man at the head 
chances to be an able man himself, or under the 
influence of some other man who is able. Indi- 
vidual officials are then under thorough and con- 
stant individual responsibility. But this respon- 
sibility is more necessary for the one man at the 
head than for any and all others. 

This means, to put it in another form, the ab- 
olition, as to the chief executive, of tenure by 
election, and the putting in its place tenure by 
the will of the people. 

In other words, we should give to the people, 
in its popular assembly, the power to remove, at 
any time, for any cause which is in their judg- 
ment sufficient, the one executive head, instead 
of removing and re-electing him at the end of 
fixed terms of years. Having a single executive 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 109 

head, the popular assembly should have the com* 
plete control at all times of that executive head, 
for reasons that have due connection with ad- 
ministration. Hold him responsible for admin- 
istration. Secure that responsibility, as sensible 
men do in private affairs, by discharging the ser- 
vant whenever, for any reason, he fails to give 
satisfaction to the master. In other words, we 
must have responsibility to the people at all 
times, instead of to the professional politicians 
once in one, two, or four years. 

With our present form of popular election, by 
the direct action of the citizen, it is impossible to 
have anything other than this term system. It 
is quite out of the question to have the citizens 
go through this form of balloting every day or 
every month. It is very costly in time and 
money. There must be some limit to the fre- 
quency of these so-called popular elections. If 
we have direct voting by individuals, it must be 
at fixed periods, at fixed terms of years. But 
meantime the administration of public affairs, 
while honest, may be very unwise. The dangers 
of delay may be very great. In such cases due 
regard to the security of public interests requires 
that the chief executive should be subject to the 
power of removal at all times for the mere fail- 



110 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

ure to give satisfactory administration. And this 
power of removal must be intrusted to some body 
of men in the State. For men are the only agen- 
cies that are available. 

If the power of selecting the successor were 
in the ordinary popular assembly, which had the 
power of removal, it might be thought that there 
would be for that reason a temptation to the 
popular assembly to use the power of removal 
unwisely, or even corruptly. 

This temptation, however, would be largely, 
if not wholly, removed by the plan already sug- 
gested, of having the election of the chief execu- 
tive vested in a special popular assembly chosen 
for that sole purpose. Of course we cannot ex- 
pect, under any system, to insure the members 
of the general popular assembly against any and 
all temptation, from any and every source. All 
that we can expect to do in that direction is to 
reduce this temptation to the lowest amount 
practicable. This we should do by vesting the 
power of electing the chief executive in a special 
popular assembly, the members of which were 
chosen by popular election for that one purpose, 
in other words, in a special electoral college. 

The whole question virtually comes down to 
this : Should this power of removal be limited to 
the mere cases of crimes ? 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. Ill 

If it is safe to trust the Senate with the power 
of removing for crime, is it not safe to trust flu* 
entire legislature, or the popular assembly (under 
the security of a two-thirds vote), with the power 
of removing for inefficiency ? 

And can we secure vigorous, efficient adminis- 
tration, without vesting this power somewhere 8 

Is there any other way in w x hich we can have 
any reasonable probability of securing experi- 
ence, with responsibility, on the part of our chief 
administrative official? We do not secure that 
result by our present system. Can any other be 
suggested, by which those two points can both 
be combined ? Can these two advantages be had 
in any other way than by having the supervision 
and control of all public affairs, of the entire ad- 
ministration, in the hands of some body of men 
of knowledge and experience, who can act, intel- 
ligently and freely, on their best common judg- 
ment, at any time and at all times ? 

And wliere can we find such a body of men, 
except in the popular assembly, in the people's 
public meeting? The supreme power, the su- 
preme control, must be somewhere. The experi- 
ment of putting it in the hands of the individual 
citizen has been tried, and has given, invariably 
and certainly, one result, the putting the control 



112 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

of public affairs, the selection and control of the 
highest public officials, in the hands of the pro- 
fessional politicians, which means, necessarily and 
certainly, putting it in the hands of the corrupt 
rich men who pay those professionals, who sup- 
ply the money. 

This proposal, it is to be noted, consists merely 
in giving to the popular assembly the same pow- 
er of removing the single executive head that the 
British House of Commons has of removing sev- 
eral heads of different administrative depart- 
ments. Now few men have ever said that there 
was any danger in giving to the House of Com- 
mons that power over those different heads of 
departments. But is it not safer to give to the 
popular assembly the supreme control over one 
official than over many, especially if the assem- 
bly has no voice in the selection of the successor I 
The British House of Commons has not only the 
removal of all those department heads, but vir- 
tually the appointment of their successors. There 
is, therefore, the strongest inducement to mem- 
bers of the House to intrigue for a vote of the 
House which will compel the resignation of the 
Ministry. For resignation of the existing Minis- 
try means places for a large number of men now 
out of office. This power of removing all the 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 113 

department heads would be comparatively free 
from danger and inconvenience, if the members 
of the popular assembly were themselves free 
from the necessity of paying their political sup- 
porters ; if they were free from the necessity of 
carrying the next election ; if they were them- 
selves independent. And if the members of the 
highest body in the State, the body holding the su- 
preme power in the State, were to continue to hold 
their places by the tenure by election, I doubt 
if we could obtain any very substantial, or very 
enduring, improvement in our public methods. 

We come, then, to the question of giving to 
the popular assembly the supreme control of its 
own members. 

That means the abolition of tenure by election 
for the members of the popular assembly, as well 
as for the chief executive, and the substituting 
in its place tenure at the will of the people ; in 
other words, each member of the popular assem- 
bly, though originally chosen by the citizens of 
his electoral district, would be responsible, after 
he was chosen, not to his single district or to its 
citizens, but only to the whole people, that is, to 
the popular assembly itself. 

This proposition will, no doubt, seem to many 
minds strange and revolutionary. 
8 



114 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

Let us see, however, whether such a change is 
not now shown by our experience to be neces- 
sary. In the light of our experience, will any- 
thing short of this change serve our needs ? 

The theory has been, heretofore, that this ten- 
ure by election, this term system, has secured 
responsibility to the citizen. 

But we have already seen that that is not the 
way in which the theory works. The practical 
result is to insure only responsibility to the pro- 
fessionals, and to such moneyed interests as are 
willing to use corrupt methods. 

What method, then, is open to us ? We must 
do something. We must at least make an effort 
to find some practical remedy for those great and 
radical evils. What shall it be ? 

This question necessitates a consideration of 
the main idea which lies at the foundation of 
representative government. 

This idea has generally been that the repre- 
sentative, so called, the member of a popular as- 
sembly who was chosen by citizens of a single 
district, was to represent the ideas of the citizens 
of that district in his action as a member of the 
general assembly. This idea has been one of the 
main reasons on which has rested the term sys- 
tem. It has been assumed that the delegate 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 115 

kk represented " these citizens of the single district, 
and that they should, therefore, have the oppor- 
tunity to send some other delegate in his place, 
whenever he should cease to represent their ideas 
satisfactorily. 

Although this theory has been accepted very 
generally, careful consideration will, I think, 
show its unsoundness. 

Let us begin its examination by seeing what 
would be the practical working of this change 
here proposed in our political machinery. 

The common impression might be that it would 
make the popular assembly a body of great per- 
manence, with a permanent membership; that it 
would be a body of old men — with old, stagnated 
ideas. 

On the contrary, the tendency would be to 
give us a body of very able, active men, thor- 
oughly in harmony with the most advanced 
thought of the time, the membership of which 
would be constantly changing. But this change 
in membership would be easy and steady. It 
would be the continued change of single men by 
resignation and death (not often by removal), and 
the bringing in of steady streams of new blood, 
of new men directly chosen by the people. If 
the people can be trusted (as I believe they can, 



116 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

with proper organization), the men who would be 
chosen as delegates would generally be first-class 
men. I do not mean that even the people would 
invariably make the wisest possible choice, would 
always select the one wisest or fittest man. But 
they would be very certain, in the large majority 
of instances, when they had freedom of action, 
to select men who were safe ; men of good re- 
pute, who had had experience in affairs ; men of 
public spirit, who had been tried. These men so 
selected would be ordinarily men somewhat ad- 
vanced in years, who had led laborious lives. 
They would generally be successful men, there- 
fore generally men of some means. Membership 
in these popular assemblies, if men did their 
work faithfully, would be very laborious. Mem- 
bers who were honest would get small remunera- 
tion in money ; and all that they could gain in 
reputation they would get in a comparatively 
short time. Many of them, after a reasonable 
time of service, would ask to retire, and get some 
measure of honorable satisfaction from their 
later years in private life. 

But assuming that there were, virtually, no 
resignations, and no removals, death alone would 
probably make, virtually, a complete change in the 
membership of the national, or a state, popular 



TIIE CHANGES NEEDED. 117 

mbly once in about fifteen years. At times 
single individuals would serve for a longer time, 
it might be twenty or thirty years, or even more. 
But the large majority of the members would 
die within twelve or fifteen years. The result 
would be that the membership would be con- 
stantly changing. But the change would be 
gradual and easy, instead of being revolution- 
ary. Instead of having a large number of ex- 
perienced men go out and new men come in at 
fixed periods, old men would go out and new men 
would come in singly. The machinery would not 
be deranged. Work would not be interrupted. 
The membership would have stability and mo- 
bility combined. Xew blood and brain would 
be continually coming in, and at the same time 
the body would at all times have a large propor- 
tion of members of experience. 

Even such a body of men as, I believe, would 
be selected by our American people when free, 
still ought to be under constant responsibility to 
some competent lawful authority. 

How would that be secured better than by 
having the individual members of each popular 
assembly accountable for their conduct, as mem- 
bers of the assembly, only to the assembly itself I 

In the first place, the only men who can have 



118 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

any full or accurate knowledge, any sufficient 
means for forming a sound judgment, as to 
whether or not any member of the popular as- 
sembly is a really faithful and valuable servant 
to the people, are the members of the assembly it- 
self. No other men can see the member day by 
day — can judge the quality of the man and his 
work. Those men will be able to form a judg- 
ment that will, in all probability, be correct. If 
they cannot, no men can. 

In the next place, if we give to the popular as- 
sembly the degree of stability in its membership 
that it would gain from the abolition of the ten- 
ure by election, no body of men would have so 
strong a merely selfish personal interest to in- 
duce them to act on their best judgment as the 
popular assembly itself. Such a body of men 
would have a large degree of official pride, one 
of the strongest practical motives that men have. 
That is a motive that always exists to a very 
powerful degree, with men who are members of 
any permanent organization. Soldiers are proud 
of their army. Sailors are proud of the navy. 
The professional politicians are proud of their 
party. The members of the popular assembly, 
being human, would have the same kind of pride 
for the same reasons. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 11 ( J 

The members of such a body would, moreover, 
be able to gain a large knowledge of public af- 
fairs, and a long experience in their special public 
work. They would have the opportunity of be- 
coming veterans. Where, but in government, 
our largest organization of men, that deals with 
our largest affairs, do we think it possible for men 
to fit themselves for the highest places in one, 
two, or four years ? When one comes to give the 
matter careful thought, how is it possible for men 
to fit themselves for the highest places in our 
government, for membership in our national and 
state legislatures, unless by experience? Every 
private citizen, in every private calling, studies 
in the school of experience, and knows that he 
must do so if he is to be a practical and success- 
ful man. There is no private occupation of any 
kind that a man can learn in two years, unless it 
be to dig dirt or break stone. Even digging dirt 
and breaking stone, if they are to be done well, 
require training of more than two years, for a 
man must have his muscles developed by years 
of hard work. But to be a good blacksmith, or 
a good carpenter, takes long training, long ex- 
perience; and each fresh year adds to the skill 
and worth of the workman. Yet our present 
political system is founded, virtually, on the as- 



120 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

sumption that, in matters of government, train- 
ing and experience have no importance for the 
men at the head. Most men agree that the sub- 
ordinates — the men who handle letters in a post- 
office, or who weigh merchandise in a custom- 
house, or who use ships and rifles and artillery — 
must have training and experience. 

But how" is it as to the men at the head ? 

Where is it that we must especially have the 
brains, and the power that comes from training 
alone ? 

The trouble is deep-seated. It comes from the 
assumption— that lies at the foundation of our 
whole political system — that " government by 
the people " means government by the individ- 
ual citizens ; that those individual citizens are to 
" take turns " at the public work ; and that the 
individual citizens are themselves, in their own 
persons, to exercise the supreme control over 
the actual administration, not only of the local 
affairs of the small peoples, but also of the larger 
affairs of cities, states, and the nation. My posi- 
tion is this : I draw no distinction, as to this 
point, between citizens who are termed educated 
and well-informed, and those who are termed un- 
educated and ill-informed. As to this point, of 
taking a direct personal part in the administra- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 121 

tion of the public affairs of the larger peoples, all 

citizens are uneducated and ill-informed. The 
ordinary citizen must necessarily be unable to 
get the knowledge that is absolutely necessary 
to enable him to judge of the quality of the pub- 
lic work of any of our highest public servants. 
In the original selection of those highest servants, 
each citizen should, as I have stated, have his one 
free voice. But as to passing judgment, through 
this process of so-called popular election, on the 
quality of the servants' work, after they take 
their seats in the popular assembly, the ordinary 
citizen, whoever he may be, high or low, rich or 
poor, learned or unlearned, must necessarily be 
unable to form an intelligent judgment. 

The idea, therefore, that the delegate in the 
popular assembly is the "representative" of the 
ideas of the individual citizens of the district 
which elects him rests, I submit, on unsound po- 
litical views. The popular assembly should be an 
assembly of the ichole people, met to confer on 
the affairs of the ichole people, and to decide pub- 
lic questions with a view to the interests of the 
ichole people. It should be an assembly where 
the thought of each individual citizen, as far as 
may be, is to be represented in the process of form- 
ing the thought of the people as to the practical 



122 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

measures demanded by the common weal. But 
individual interests and local interests, whenever 
necessary, are to be sacrificed for the common 
good. The time when they should be so sacri- 
ficed, and the extent to which they should be 
sacrificed, can be determined, wisely and right- 
ly, only in the common assembly, by its com- 
mon judgment. That common judgment, when 
formed, until it is modified or reversed by the 
same authority, must be conclusive. For his indi- 
vidual action, in assisting to form that common 
judgment, it is not expedient, nor is it, in the 
long run, for the interest of any one, that the in- 
dividual member should be held responsible to 
any authority other than that of the body itself. 
When the representative is once chosen, he should 
be the servant of the whole people, to care for the 
interests of the whole people, responsible only to 
the whole people. No individual, or body of indi- 
viduals, or single section, or single faction of the 
people, should thenceforth have over him any 
supervision or any control. 

Especially is it against the interests of the in- 
dividual citizens that the delegate should simply 
" represent " the ideas of the citizens of his own 
district, or a majority of them. The purpose of 
free democratic institutions is to have the £en- 



TIIE CHANGES NEEDED. 123 

eral policy of the government as wise as it is possi- 
ble to make it by the combined wisdom of the en- 
tire people. This is the w T ish of all sensible men. 
The interests of the whole people, if they are 
rightly understood, are harmonious. If a proper 
understanding is had of the interests of different 
individuals and sections, there is no conflict be- 
tween them for any long time. But, however 
that may be, the delegate is chosen because he 
is one of the able men of his district, much abler 
than the majority. But he is not infallible, nor 
are his constituents. Keither their ideas nor his 
can be assumed to be absolutely right, even w^ith 
a view only to forwarding the mere sectional in- 
terests of his one district. Isow, can it be well 
to bind the delegate, on any subject, so that he 
shall not have the right to freely change his 
mind { Can it be wise even to make the attempt i 
Is it for the real interest of the State, or of any 
considerable number of citizens, that the dele- 
gate should be so bound ? To hold that the del- 
egate should be fettered by pledges is, so far, to 
prevent the working of free thought. The pop- 
ular assembly is not free in its action unless 
each one of its members is free to think his own 
thought, to utter it in his own way, and to 
change his opinions when convinced by reason- 



124 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

able argument. It is of the very essence of free 
democratic institutions that the thought and ac- 
.tion of the delegate should be as free as that of 
the citizen. 

But fortunately there are few practical ques- 
tions on which the attempt to bind the delegate 
by pledges is ever made. As a matter of prac- 
tice, he is usually trusted to act on his own judg- 
ment, as he sliould be. 

The more we consider this idea, that the mem- 
ber of the popular assembly is the representative 
of any one district, or of any section of individ- 
uals, the more clearly we shall see that it is rad- 
ically unsound in theory and impossible of prac- 
tice. 

If it were possible, in practice, to secure this 
responsibility to the individual citizens, or to any 
single section, then this idea of such a responsi- 
bility would stand on stronger grounds. 

But it cannot be carried out in practice. The 
attempt has been made, in this country and in 
other countries, in times modern and times an- 
cient. It has always failed. It has secured re- 
sponsibility to election managers, not to the peo- 
ple. It has secured responsibility only in word, 
not in deed. It has given lip service, and not 
faithful work. It has brought into existence a 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 125 

class of noisy men, who prate about platforms 
and principles, but who are compelled to serve 
the personal interests of themselves and their 
fellow -professionals. It has given to the peo- 
ple demagogues and not statesmen — the rule of 
money, instead of the rule of ideas. 

But the most important point is yet to be 
named. 

This change in the tenure is the only way in 
which we can secure, in the popular assembly, 
freedom — with responsibility. We believe in free 
democratic institutions, because we believe in the 
power and the wisdom of free thought. Free- 
dom of thought and freedom of political action 
cannot be had, either on the part of the citizen 
or the public servant, so long as we keep this 
tenure by election. It is tenure by election that 
brings into existence these great standing armies, 
which, under the form of extremely democratic 
institutions, in effect destroy the political free- 
dom of the citizen, and make our highest public 
officials not the servants of the people, but the 
slaves of the election machine. If we are to ex- 
pect wise legislation and efficient supervision of 
public affairs at the hands of the popular assem- 
bly, its members must be free — to form and utter 
each pian his own individual opinions, to take part 



126 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

in free public conference, to be influenced by free 
public argument, and to agree, without fear or 
favor of any individual, or body of individuals, 
outside the assembly, in a common conclusion. 

Publicity, in its modern sense, political day- 
light, is the surest protection for the people. 
Bribery statutes do no harm; they never have 
done much good. But the real protection against 
bribery and corruption must be found in free- 
dom — and publicity, with real, substantial respon- 
sibility to the people. These combined will puri- 
fy the political waters, and will produce a more 
highly educated standard for official action — in 
time. It will take time, but not a very long time, 
as times should be measured in the lives of nations. 

But we must bear it well in mind that honesty 
never yet was the child of slavery — even in gov- 
ernments. 

I do not mean that the abolition of tenure by 
election will abolish selfishness, or bring in im- 
mediately the millennium. The fact is, that the 
real difficulty with this present system of tenure 
by election is that it is suited only to the mil- 
lennium ; that, so long as men are such as they 
are, selfish and imperfect, it cannot be made to 
work well under our present changed conditions ; 
it seems plausible, as a matter of theory, but it 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 127 

can no longer stand the tests of actual practice. 
So long as we make it for the personal interests 
of our public servants to carry elections, they will 
carry elections. And so long as men continue 
to be influenced largely by their own views of 
their own interests, it will be necessary for us to 
make this fundamental change in our government, 
in order to make their personal interests coincide 
with the interests of the public, and thereby se- 
cure their devotion to the interests of the public. 
In other words, under our present system, we 
make an " irrepressible conflict " between the rep- 
resentative's personal interest and his public duty. 
We must make those two things harmonize. 

The actual working of the machinery, as found 
by experience, is this : When representatives are 
compelled to carry the next election in order to 
preserve their political life, the pressure of per- 
sonal interests will, very surely, in the large ma- 
jority of cases, make the representative serve 
the interests of the men who control the organ- 
izations of professional election brokers; that 
means the men who provide the party funds. 
Those men who hold the money-bags have him 
largely under their control. To the citizen he 
gives his profession of faith in the political plat- 
forms. To the men who provide the money — 



128 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

the sinews of war — for these election campaigns, 
he gives his actual service. If, on the contrary, 
he is responsible only to the popular assembly, 
he is dependent on a body of men who are, as 
nearly as men can be, independent ; who have 
the ability and the opportunity to judge him ac- 
curately and fearlessly. If any body of men in 
the entire community can be depended on to 
judge him justly, it is that body of men. Iso 
other body would be so able or worthy of trust. 
If the citizens can be trusted to select their rep- 
resentatives, those representatives can, and must, 
be trusted to judge their fellow-members. 

This proposal would give the popular assem- 
blies no power that they do not already have. 
It is the ordinary law that legislative houses 
have the right to expel any member by a two- 
thirds vote. All that is here proposed is to de- 
stroy " tenure by election," so as to insure to 
the members of these supreme bodies experience, 
and independence of the corrupt elements in the 
State. 

We must realize, in politics, the strong points, 
and the weak ones, of human nature. Most men 
try to do right, to live up to their lights. Most 
men, too, are influenced by their own views of 
their own interests. What we wish from these 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 129 

men whom we place at the /trad of our public 

service, is the best service they can give us. If 
we expect to get that service at their hands, we 
must make it pay for them to give us their best 
service, instead of making it pay for them to sac- 
rifice the interests of the people to the interests 
of the office brokers. In other words, we must 
pay them liberally in money (cheap labor is poor 
labor, in public as well as in private affairs) ; and 
we must make the prizes of public life depend 
on fearless public work, instead of the dirty work 
of pulling the wires of the political puppets, man- 
aging caucuses, and paying for election work 
with public office and with money. "When we 
begin to carry on our government on those sim- 
ple common-sense business principles, then we 
shall make a beginning in the work of putting 
straight the present crooked condition of public 
affairs. What is now termed " Civil Service Ke- 
form" consists mainly of an attempt to take " out 
of politics " a limited number of subordinate 
places. But the offices that must be taken " out 
of politics " are the offices at the head. For " pol- 
itics " now means the trade of office brokerage. 
Nothing substantial can ever be accomplished, 
nor can we even make a substantial beginning 
of any substantial improvement, so long as we 
9 



130 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

retain this system of slavery for the men at the 
head. There is the chief evil; there we must 
apply the remedy. 

Notwithstanding these considerations, how- 
ever, there will still remain, in the minds of 
many men, a fear of what will be called an as- 
sembly of members who hold office " for life." 
The fear will be that such a body of men will 
form corrupt combinations, and will sacrifice the 
interests of the people to their own personal in- 
terests ; perhaps even to the extent of attempt- 
ing to undermine or destroy the liberties of the 
citizen and of the people. 

This point certainly deserves the most careful 
consideration. 

First, however, it is to be noted that this sacri- 
fice of the interests of the people to the interests 
of the office-holder is the chief evil under our 
present system ; and is the principal pressing rea- 
son why the system must be changed. The ques- 
tion here is, therefore, not whether the clanger 
will exist at all, if our system be changed, but 
whether it will be greater or less than it is now. 

This question is one that goes to the very es- 
sence of democratic institutions. 

It is a fact, as we well know, that in every 
community, under every form of government, 



TOE CHANGES NEEDED. 131 

citizens can be found who can be trusted to serve 
the people faithfully, and, if necessary to that 
end, to sacrifice their own personal interests, their 
lives, and their fortunes. This American people, 
especially, has always had such men in abun- 
dant numbers. The question, then, really comes 
down to this : Can we trust, not our public ser- 
vants, but the people ? Can we depend on the 
people, to find out these men, and put them in 
the people's highest places ? If we can, then 
the question is answered. 

Now the essential fundamental fact on which 
democratic institutions must stand, if they are 
to stand at all, the fact on which alone demo- 
cratic government can and must justify its ex- 
istence, is that the people can he trusted to do 
this very thing. If the people cannot be trusted, 
it has no right to rule ; if it cannot be trusted to 
select the men who are to fill the highest places 
in the State, it can be trusted to do nothing. I 
agree that no body of election brokers, able as 
many of them are, honest as many of them are, 
public-spirited as many of them are, can be trust- 
ed to exercise the supreme power in the State, 
even though they be restrained by the fear of 
the newspapers. I agree, too, and insist, that, if 
the people is to select its own servants, it must 



132 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

be so organized that it can think and form its 
own judgment, at the time it makes that choice. 
I agree, too, and insist, that the idea that the 
people can perform the work of administration 
in any way other than by the hands of men spe- 
cially selected for that work is an impracticable 
idea. But in the honesty, and common - sense, 
and political wisdom of the people, when it is so 
organized that it can think with its own brain, I 
have, for one, the highest confidence. It must 
be content with only exercising the supreme su- 
pervision and control. It must act through its 
members and organs. It must not try to have 
each one of its members, much less each one of 
its individual cells, the citizens, exercise every 
function in the State. Each citizen cannot at 
once be the brain, liver, and stomach of the body 
politic. But the people, properly organized, can 
be fully trusted, when they cease to turn politics 
into a mere gambling game of political see-saw, 
to do the rational work of rational government. 

But, then, when I say that we can trust the 
people to select its servants, I say also that the 
people must trust those servants after the ser- 
vants have been selected. 

We are compelled to trust men — under any 
system of government. We do it now. We must 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 138 

do it always. What is it even now, under our pres- 
ent system of government, where the people have 
no substantial control of public men and meas- 
ures, that constitutes our only substantial secur- 
ity for the honest administration of public af~ 
fairs ? The consciences of men ; of the profes- 
sional politicians ; their sense of right and wrong. 
These professional politicians are very shrewd ; 
they understand the political position better than 
any other class of men in the community ; they 
know very well that it is easy for members in 
the state and national legislatures to do the 
work of the large moneyed interests quietly, se- 
cretly, and efficiently, year after year, and be re- 
elected term after term, so long as they make 
fine speeches about the rights of the slave, the 
rights of the laboring man, the wrongs of capi- 
tal, the necessity of temperance — in short, so long 
as they will stand on high moral " platforms " 
and take high moral ground on all the " burning 
issues." These men know very well that " poli- 
tics," as now practised, is a game and a sham. 
Yet the large majority of these very profession- 
als do as good work for the people as is allowed 
by their knowledge, their surroundings, and es- 
pecially by the amount of time at their disposal. 
Why ? Simply for the reason that, after all is 



134 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

said and done, the members of our state and na- 
tional legislatures, selected as they are, not by 
the people, but by the professional politicians, 
controlled as they are, not by the people, but 
by the professional politicians, yet have con- 
sciences ; they are men of ordinary honesty and 
ordinary intelligence ; they represent a large 
number of diverse interests; in a rough way, 
they deliberate, and form a common judgment ; 
in a rough way, under very difficult circum- 
stances, they do the people's thinking, as well 
as they can ; and, as far as circumstances permit, 
they act up to their best lights, their highest 
standards. The standards, often, are not very 
high. The men are taught in a bad school, the 
one where we now compel them to study, the 
school of the election machine. The methods 
are not the best methods. But they are the meth- 
ods we compel them to use. The fact that our 
results are no worse, that our public affairs are 
administered as well as they are, is the strongest 
evidence of the nobility of human nature, and of 
the high degree of confidence that we might safe- 
ly place in other men, selected by other processes, 
or even in these same men, if, even now, we were 
to send them to a new school. For the men are 
very American, very clever, very quick to learn. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 135 

The matter comes down finally to this : Under 
the system of " tenure by election " we trust power 
to these men selected by the election machine 
for a short term. Under a system of " tenure 
by will of the people " we should trust men se- 
lected by the people for no term, only for so 
long as the people itself should think it wise. 

Under which system are the probabilities of 
honest and efficient administration the greater ? 

But it may still be said that this will make 
public officers hold office for life, and will, there- 
fore, not be democratic. 

Let us see what there is in this point. 

If the people really makes its own choice of its 
own highest officials, and has the power of re- 
moving them whenever it sees fit, it will have as 
thorough practical control of public officials and 
public affairs as is possible ; certainly much great- 
er than it has now. 

But it is the fact that, with the modifications 
here proposed, while the control of public men 
and public measures would be at all times in the 
hands of the people, many men who entered the 
public service would stay in it for life. Not, in- 
deed, in the same places. Men who went in at 
the bottom would have some fair possibility of 
rising to the top, of winning high rank by good 



136 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

work — as they do now in private affairs. But, 
no doubt, many public servants would, under a 
common-sense organization of the public service, 
stay in it for life. 

But that is a uniform condition of the highest 
success. Men who achieve any substantial suc- 
cess in any calling must follow that calling, as a 
rule, for life. That is a necessity that arises from 
the finite nature of man's faculties. Men who 
work on the rotatory system generally do work 
of little or no value. The rotatory system is ad- 
mirably fitted for stars, but not for human be- 
ings. In times past, yielding to the needs of our 
crude frontier life, we have been in the habit of 
admiring men who were "handy/ 5 a3 the term 
is ; men who could do a little of everything, who 
could do everything equally well — and equally ill. 
But we now live under other conditions, and must 
use other methods. Work must be subdivided ; 
men must be organized ; and they must give their 
time mainly to work of one kind. There is in 
this nothing new. Men have always done so 
in large and civilized peoples. We, in our turn, 
are now becoming a large and civilized people ; 
and we must live accordingly. In affairs of State, 
as in private affairs, we must generally employ 
servants who work for life. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 187 

It may be said, too, that these changes will 
create an office-holding class ; that we shall have 
an aristocracy. 

That is, no doubt, true — we should, no doubt, 
then have an office-holding class. 

But we have it now. And the question is, 
whether we will have an aristocracy or a kakis- 
tocracy — whether we will be governed by the best 
or the worst elements in the community. As 
things now are, it may at any time happen that 
the office of President of the United States, or 
Governor of the State of ISTew York, or Mayor 
of the City of New York, may be bought by the 
purchase of a few thousand votes. More than 
that number can be, and is, bought and sold, for 
money, at every annual election. Under this 
wonderfully organized, highly developed system 
of carrying elections, with large numbers of 
voters voting at the same time for the same offi- 
cers, through large districts, these skilful profes- 
sionals know precisely where are the weak and 
doubtful spots on which they must concentrate 
their work, and, above all, their money. In the 
large cities there will be, yet for some time, a con- 
siderable number of men who belong to the crim- 
inal classes. These members of the criminal 
classes are the men who buy and sell votes. Un- 



138 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

der our present system, therefore, the largest 
possible weight is given to the criminal classes. 
Other men vote on their convictions. These men 
buy and sell nominations and votes for money. 
And thus it happens that these men, who can 
easily be induced by money to go on either side, 
or rather on the side that will pay most, are very 
often, and much more often than any other class 
of men in the community, the force that in the 
end proves to be the controlling force. It is not 
necessary to go into particulars. The profession- 
als, in both of what we term the great " parties," 
are men of the same kind, and are compelled, in 
self-preservation, to use the same methods. They 
have to fight fire with fire. The result is that, 
under our present system, we give a very undue 
weight to our criminal classes, and they have be- 
come a very powerful element in the selection 
and in the control of our public officials. So, 
I say, the question is whether we will have an 
aristocracy or a kakistocracy. 

Let us not be afraid of a name. 

Any real democracy will be an aristocracy — 
the only possible aristocracy. No hereditary 
system can give a real aristocracy — where men 
are selected for the highest places in the State 
for worth and not birth. The only political sys- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 130 

tern under which this is possible is a democracy, 
if the men at the head of the State are selected 
by the judgment and brain of the people. I do 
not say that such men will always be so selected, 
even where the people controls. I do say that 
such men cannot be selected, as a rule, under any 
other system, and that they will be selected, as a 
rule, under a real democracy. Under the heredi- 
tary system the accidents of birth will occasion- 
ally produce men of exceptional power, and of 
large and generous public views. As a rule, how- 
ever, the descendants of kings soon become weak 
or tyrannical, or both. The system is a failure. 
The rotatory system — the system of the political 
whirligig — is now also shown to be a failure. 
Whether or not the democratic system can suc- 
ceed remains to be seen. 

For one, I think it will. 

But what else can we try ? Or shall we con- 
tinue to use the political see-saw ? 

My conclusion, then, as to this point of our 
inquiry, is, that three fundamental principles 
have now been established, especially by our ex- 
perience in the last hundred years, to be essen- 
tial to the harmonious and successful working 
of democratic institutions; and that those prin- 
ciples are: 



140 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

I. The popular assembly, or public meeting, is 
the organ whereby any people, that is, any num- 
ber of individuals who are to take combined po- 
litical action, must form and utter its common 
judgment and its common will. 

II. Administration, the execution of a people's 
policy, must have one head. 

III. The popular assembly of each people must 
have the supreme supervision and control of all 
its public affairs, of its administrative methods, of 
the administrative head, and of its own members. 

Let us now take one step further in our study, 
and see what would be the effect, on the politi- 
cal life of the individual citizen, and of the peo- 
ple, of the adoption in practice of these princi- 
ples, when taken in combination. 

In the first place there would be at least a ten- 
dency to secure freedom of political thought and 
political action on the part of the citizen. 

I admit that, even as things now are, the citi- 
zen has, to some extent, freedom of thought. He 
has, no doubt, in law the right, and in fact the 
power, to think as he will on any and all politi- 
cal questions at all times. But though he has in 
law that right, and in fact that power, the practi- 
cal working of things now is, that the right and 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 141 

power are unused at the very time when the citi- 
zen comes to exercise his functions as a citizen, 
that is, at the time of election. At other times 
he thinks with some degree of freedom. At that 
time he enters into voluntary servitude. Bear in 
mind that, except in the affairs of the smallest 
local organizations, the outside practicable limit 
of action that can be open to the individual citi- 
zen is, that he may take part in the mere selec- 
tion of the highest officials. It is impossible for 
him to do more than that, under any system 
whatever that can be made to work. JSTow, un- 
der our present machinery, whatever the citizen 
may think before election, when election comes 
he is practically certain, in the large majority of 
cases, to surrender his own individual judgment, 
and to act with his old comrades in battle under 
his old generals. In other w^ords, he acts at that 
time not on his judgment, but in accordance 
with his feelings, of distrust of his old political 
enemies, and loyalty to his old political friends. 
In practice, he then omits to exercise the right 
that he has under the law, the exercise of which, 
at all times, and under all circumstances, lies at 
the foundation of democratic institutions. It 
makes comparatively little difference how a citi- 
zen thinks, or how much freedom of thought he 



142 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

has, under the law, before the time of action, if 
he is always to omit using it when the time 
of action has come. 

But let us see how it would be if we were to 
adopt in our government the principles just 
stated. One effect, at least, would be this: it 
would tend to destroy the work and the power 
of the election machine. The work would cease 
to pay. The number of offices to be filled by the 
process of election would be reduced to the small- 
est possible number, and no one could tell when 
even those few offices w-ould be vacant. For 
each people, the people of a town, city, state, or 
the nation, there would be only one elective ad- 
ministrative officer, the single administrative 
head. Each election district would also have to 
choose a delegate, whenever that became neces- 
sary for the purpose of selecting members of any 
one of the different popular assemblies. This 
decrease in the frequency of elections for each 
single office, combined with the decrease in the 
number of elective offices, would at least have a ten- 
dency to bring the measure of this election work 
somewhere near to the possibilities of the ordi- 
nary citizen. The paucity and uncertainty of the 
prizes to be won by election work would tend, too, 
to drive the professionals into other occupations. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 143 

What now keeps these election armies in ex- 
istence is the fact that there are these thousands 
of vacant offices each year, to be gained by suc- 
cess in these great election contests. Once in 
two or three years there is the possibility of 
making a clean sweep of nearly all local offices ; 
once in one, two, or three years there is the same 
possibility as to the offices of every state ; and 
once in four years there is the same possibility 
as to the offices of the nation. Just so long as 
these great campaigns are to be fought at fixed 
periods, and these great prizes are to be won by 
winning the campaigns, so long the armies will 
be maintained and paid. Just so long, too, as 
the constituencies are so large, and the election 
machinery is so vast, these campaigns will be 
very costly, in time and money, and will become, 
and remain, contests in which only these large 
permanent organizations of highly drilled and 
disciplined professionals will have any possibil- 
ity of success. "When, however, elective offices 
are so few, and especially when no one can fore- 
see when any particular office is to be vacant, 
then the office brokers will betake themselves to 
some employment of which the rewards are more 
numerous and certain. 

Ordinary citizens will then have something 



144 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

more nearly approaching a possibility of taking 
part in the act of an election on terms more 
nearly equal, and accomplishing some substan- 
tial result with the expenditure of a reasonable 
amount of time. Then, as now, individuals will 
differ in the degree of interest they take in, and 
the time they will give to, " politics." But there 
will be something approaching a possibility for 
ordinary men to have a reasonable degree of 
weight, for legitimate reasons, in the selection of 
our public servants. 

I do not mean that there will then be no " par- 
ties," if that term be used to mean merely combi- 
nations of citizens for the purpose of concerted po- 
litical action. Whenever there shall be any public 
question of sufficiently wide public interest, men 
will combine, in legitimate wa} T s, to use legiti- 
mate means to have their views carried into 
effect in the administration of public affairs. If 
at such times it should happen that members of 
some popular assembly were to be elected, no 
doubt the views of candidates on such public 
questions would have due weight in determining 
the popular vote. 

What I am opposing is the existence of these 
standing armies of office brokers and place hunt- 
ers, and the political system of which they are 
the necessary and certain perennial fruits. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 145 

Nor need there be any fear lest the adoption 
of the changes here suggested would unduly les- 
sen the political functions of the citizen. 

On the contrary, the sphere of activity of the 
citizen and his political influence would be great- 
ly enlarged. Instead of merely putting a printed 
list into a box, with or without " his mark," being 
himself boxed or unboxed, he would have at least 
the opportunity to take part in public meetings, 
established by law, of all the citizens, where the 
real questions on which he was to act would be 
publicly discussed, at the time when he was to act 
upon them. He would have at least his equal op- 
portunity to take part in these discussions. If he 
did not take an active part in them, he could at 
least hear them. He would have at least an oppor- 
tunity to gain, at the time when he was to act, in- 
formation, not merely from men of his own " par- 
ty," but from men of all parties, as to the fitness 
of all the candidates for all the offices for whom 
he was to utter his voice. If, according to ordi- 
nary parliamentary procedure, only candidates 
for one office should be considered at one time, 
then there would be at least the possibility that 
each citizen would freely form his own judgment, 
and act on it. If, too, according to ordinary 
parliamentary procedure, each citizen were com- 

10 



146 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

pelled on the demand of a reasonable number of 
citizens to give his vote aloud, on the call of his 
name, then there would be at least a possibility 
of securing responsibility — to public opinion — on 
the part of the individual citizen, for his individ- 
ual public action. There is the point where respon- 
sibility — with freedom — should begin in the State. 
This direct participation in the common dis- 
cussions and common action of the regular public 
meetings of his own fellow-citizens, on his own 
local affairs, and in the selection of delegates and 
other public officials, would be the special field 
of political activity for the ordinary citizen. 
Political thinkers are generally agreed that this 
opportunity to take a direct personal part in 
common public conference as to common public 
affairs, after reasonable methods, is the funda- 
mental benefit to be obtained from the old-fash- 
ioned town meeting. This opportunity, however, 
would have comparatively little value if citizens 
even then were to continue, with substantial uni- 
formity, blindly to act under the orders of party 
leaders and vote for party candidates. The fact 
is, that between the organization and action of 
what now exists under the false name of " party," 
and the organization and free action of a people, 
as a people, there is an " irrepressible conflict." 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 147 

The one involves and requires the subordination, 
almost uniform, of the individual judgment to the 
commands of the office brokers. The other in- 
volves and requires complete freedom of individ- 
ual thought and action in the process of forming 
the judgment and will of the people. 

The chief reasons for expecting any substan- 
tial results from the principles here submitted 
are to be found, not in the operation of either 
one of the principles singly, but in the results 
of all of them combined. If they were all com- 
bined, there would be a possibility that the citi- 
zen could actually enjoy, in practice, something 
like political freedom. There would be a possi- 
bility that the election of the highest public offi- 
cials w^ould involve the free utterance of individ- 
ual views, and the free exercise of individual 
judgment, on the merits of individual candidates. 

If, too, these considerations be sound, then the 
adoption of these principles would at least have 
a tendency to secure freedom of political thought 
and action on the part of the people. 

The chief point is, that, at the time of election, 
the citizens assembled in the public meeting 
would find it practicable to make new combina- 
tions ; they could do something more than make 
a selection from candidates submitted to them 



148 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

beforehand. If the people can be trusted at all, 
if we can depend on the people at all, under any 
system, or under any circumstances, to make a 
Avise selection of men for their highest offices, 
then when a public meeting convened, if any 
strong combination of men submitted a candidate 
to that meeting, the meeting could and would 
adopt that candidate if the requisite number of 
members were of that mind. If, however, they 
were not of that mind, then they would have at 
least the possibility of putting new men in nom- 
ination at once, pn the spot, at the time, without 
the formality of u tickets," printed or unprinted. 

That is a thing now impossible. 

Then, too, if the vote were taken on a call of 
names, if, too, the discussion were public, if the 
action of the citizens were public, should we not 
have, as nearly as that condition of things can 
be secured by any machinery whatever, that com- 
bination of freedom and responsibility as to the 
action of the individual citizen which would at 
least have a tendency to secure freedom and wis- 
dom of action on the part of the whole people ? 

If, then, the adoption of these changes would 
have a tendency, to some extent, to secure free- 
dom of action, to the citizen and to the people, 
what would be the tendencies as to insuring vig- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 149 

orous and efficient administration from the peo- 
ple's servants? 

We have here to consider only tendencies. 
How far these tendencies would operate, I do not 
here undertake to say. It is enough for the pres- 
ent to consider whether we should make some 
decided gain / if so, that is a sufficient reason for 
making the changes. It is not possible for any 
system of organization to create or regenerate a 
people ; it can only have tendencies, in one or an- 
other direction. 

The question then is, what would be the ten- 
dencies ? 

If the positions already taken be sound, then 
the results of the adoption of these changes would 
tend to secure the selection, for the general su- 
pervision and control of the public affairs of each 
people, of each town, city, state, and of the na- 
tion, of a body of fairly able men, of varied in- 
terests, and of varied opinions. If the people can 
be trusted to choose men for any of the highest 
places in the State, if we can really depend on 
the honesty and good sense of the people, as I 
confidently believe we can, and as every believer 
in democratic institutions must hold, then these 
bodies of men would be bodies that could be 
safely trusted with that general supervision and 



150 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

control. Being free from the tenure by election, 
these members would be as free and independent 
as any body of men in the State. They would 
have as strong inducements to serve the people 
faithfully as could be secured with any body of 
men in the State. Especially they would have 
time — to learn the people's needs, and the meas- 
ures best suited to meet those needs, and to learn 
the most efficient ways of doing the large and im- 
portant work that would come upon them. They 
would have time — to get experience. They would 
be continually recruited from the ranks of the peo- 
ple, not from the ranks of hungry adventurers. 
Steadily, and continuously, new men would take 
the places made vacant by death and resignation. 
Then, too, we should have the best security 
that is upon the whole practicable, for the selec- 
tion of a safe and able man for the administrative 
head. He would be under close and constant re- 
sponsibility to the popular assembly, a body of 
men that would, if any body of men could, be able 
to judge his work well. The popular assembly 
could remove him, if that were required by the 
public needs, and keep him in office, so long as 
the people's interests were best served by keep- 
ing him. He would, while being free, yet be un- 
der close and constant supervision, and under 
close and thorough control. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 151 

Throughout the executive administration we 
should have the responsibility, of single individ- 
uals, for single classes of work. Each superior 
would be responsible for the work of his subor- 
dinates. If he did not select fit subordinates, or 
secure from them good practical results, then his 
superior would be compelled, in self-defence, to 
remove him. 

Throughout the entire public service, from the 
top to the bottom, the mere personal interest of 
each official, superior or subordinate, would tend 
to secure from him the thorough performance of 
his official w x ork. 

But especially the control by the men at the 
head would be as good as it is practicable to 
make it. 

There would be at least a tendency to secure 
freedom, with responsibility to the people, on the 
part of our highest public servants. 

In the case of these highest public servants — 
the members of the popular assembly and the 
administrative head — the responsibility to the 
popular assembly would be direct and immediate. 
On the part of subordinate administrative offi- 
cials, the responsibility to the people would be 
indirect, through the medium of their superiors. 
I say this responsibility of subordinates would be 



152 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

indirect. But it would be as direct as is possible, 
under any system of administration that is prac- 
ticable. This attempt to enforce direct responsi- 
bility to the citizens, or to the people, on the part 
of any administrative officials other than the one 
man at the head, must be abandoned as imprac- 
ticable. Responsibility, that is indirect in form, 
is all that is practicable, and is the most direct in 
substance. 

Freedom, for our highest officials, is as impor- 
tant as responsibility to the people. Even the peo- 
ple, when it can think and act as a people, must 
be content to leave to its chief administrative 
officials a large degree of freedom. Those offi- 
cials must be free— always within limits ; always 
under supervision and control — to use their own 
best judgment. Especially they must be free in 
their selection of their own subordinates. "We 
must give up the idea of tying men's hands, in 
order to prevent their using official power ill. 
For by so doing we prevent them from using 
their power well. Horses cannot run fast when 
they are hobbled. The head of any administra- 
tive force must be responsible ; he must be under 
close and constant supervision, under close and 
constant control ; he must be at any and all times 
subject to removal at the will of the people, on 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 153 

the judgment of the people. But, being under 
such supervision and such control, men must be 
trusted, within the limits of their power, to act 
on their own judgment. That is a fundamental 
fact, established by the uniform testimony of all 
men of large experience in large affairs. " Checks 
and balances " will not serve our needs. There 
must be freedom for the public servant, as well 
as for the individual citizen. When we have 
those conditions, the selection of a mayor, or a 
governor, or a president will be a matter of real 
importance ; it will be an affair calling for the 
exercise of wise judgment, calling for something 
more than the blind, unquestioning adoption of 
the action of party managers. When we come, 
as we shall, to trust men with power, then we 
shall choose them with care. Then, too, our high- 
est officials, trusted by a people with power, al- 
lowed, within lawful and reasonable limits, free- 
dom of action, will not be compelled to obey the 
money-bags, and will have some reasonable op- 
portunity of earning an honorable reputation by 
honorable work. They will have the opportu- 
nity, with the natural inducements, to serve the 
people to the best of their ability. 

Should we not also get as strong security as is 
practicable against the purchase of offices and 
votes ? 



154 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

I do not say that any constitution or laws can 
altogether prevent such purchases. But with 
the changes here suggested, if a two-thirds vote 
of each popular assembly, at each stage of the 
popular action, were required (as I think it should 
be) for the selection of any delegate or official, it 
w^ould be necessary, in order to purchase an of- 
fice, either to purchase the votes of two thirds of 
the citizens themselves, at the outset, or the votes 
of two thirds of the delegates who should be 
chosen by the people. The purchase of the votes 
of two thirds of the citizens themselves does not 
seem to me very probable. The purchase of the 
votes of two thirds of their delegates would be 
still more improbable, if we can depend on the 
people to select men of integrity. And, if Ave 
cannot depend on the people to that extent, 
then we may as well throw up our hands and 
abandon the contest. 

But of that there is no danger. We can de- 
pend on the people. 

There is one point further.. 

Can there be, upon the whole, any security 
against bribery of individual voters so strong as 
daylight, the requiring each citizen to utter his 
voice, openly and above board, in the presence of 
his fellows ? Secrecy has no place in the pro- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 155 

cesses of free democratic government. It is said 
that employers will endeavor to coerce their em- 
ployees, that rich men will attempt to coerce 
poor men. Such attempts, if made, will be made 
only by those employers and those rich men who 
prefer to use the methods of corruption. If 
those men can only be known, their game will 
soon be ended. Now the best security for find- 
ing them out will be the publicity of the public 
meeting. 

With public offices held, and public affairs ad- 
ministered, on such a basis, we should have at 
least some possibility of a vigorous and wise ad- 
ministration of our public affairs. 

In short, the adoption of these principles would, 
I submit, give at least some possibility, and would 
have some tendency, to secure freedom of political 
thought and action for both citizens and people, 
and, at the same time, to secure good adminis- 
tration. 

AYould not that be something of an advance ? 

Nevertheless, even if the considerations thus 
far submitted should carry some degree of con- 
viction to the mind of the reader, many men will 
shrink from remedies so radical, and will incline 
to seek refuge in reforms more partial. 

Let us, therefore, next consider whether airy 



156 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

of the "reforms" now prominently proposed af- 
ford any reasonable promise of any lasting or 
substantial relief from the evils that now afflict 
the body politic. 

The evils, it will be conceded, are serious and 
radical. The remedies, therefore, we may safely 
assume, must be strong and searching. They 
must deal with the disease at its roots. They 
must not trifle with surface symptoms. We must 
have what Cromwell's men called " root-and- 
branch" work. 

And first let us examine what is termed " Civil 
Service Keform." 

In its entire length and breadth, in its fullest 
scope, taking it on the statement of its most en- 
thusiastic friends, it consists in putting some re- 
strictions, and supposed securities, around the 
power of appointment of subordinate adminis- 
trative officers. 

How adequate is such a proposal to existing 
needs ? 

Here is a people engaged in an attempt to es- 
tablish a democratic government. And the sit- 
uation that we find is, that a powerful privileged 
class, of political adventurers, controls the action 
of the citizen and the people, the selection and 
official action of presidents, congressmen, gov- 



T1IE CHANGES NEEDKD. 157 

ernors, members of the state legislatures, and 
mayors, buying and selling our highest offices, 
like merchandise, for money. 

In such a position we are recommended to re- 
quire examinations and tests, merely preliminary, 
for the lowest grades of administrative officials. 

Men say that this is a beginning — in the right 
direction. 

But we must begin at the right point. When 
we wish to purify a stream that has become foul, 
we begin not at the mouth, but at its source. 
And when we wish to operate on large masses 
of men, we must deal with the men at their 
head. 

But let us examine this " Bef orm " further. 

The substantial test as to fitness, for the act- 
ual work of any office, must be made in the of- 
fice itself, and at the work of the office itself. 
Preliminary tests, as to mere knowledge of facts 
of any kind, are well enough in their way. They 
will be made by any sensible superior, who is 
held to a close responsibility for results, if he is 
free to conduct his office after his own methods. 
But the only test or examination that can have 
substantial value must be made in the work of 
the office and by the superior. 

Moreover, the tests that are merely prelim- 



158 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

inary can be made best by the superior, and 
should be made by him. They can be made well 
by no one but a person having a close and inti- 
mate knowledge of the precise work to be done. 

But the plan of " Civil Service Eef orm " is to 
have these preliminary examinations made by 
persons outside the administrative offices, by per- 
sons, therefore, who probably have themselves no 
special knowledge of the special work of the 
special officials who are to be examined. The 
examiners will, in all probability, therefore, be 
generally unable to do well the work of mere 
preliminary examination. 

But that is not all. Until a substantial change 
is made in the selection and the tenure of our 
highest officials, there is no reasonable possibil- 
ity that this " Reform," even within its limited 
scope, can be carried out. The officials at the 
head, whose personal interest under present 
methods constantly presses them to keep the 
power they have, will use their strongest efforts 
to prevent the " Reform " from becoming a suc- 
cess. And without the earnest co-operation of 
those highest officials, it cannot be made a suc- 
cess. Give them their freedom, and they will 
devise and carry out wise tests for the fitness of 
their subordinates. But we must make it serve 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 15 ( .) 

their personal interests so to do. In short, which- 
ever way we turn, Ave run against this funda- 
mental fact, that, in order to get any substantial 
improvement in present methods, we must oper- 
ate, not on the men at the bottom, but on the 
men at the head ; and, until we do so, no sub- 
stantial or lasting change for the better is to be 
expected. 

The proposed scheme is flatly in conflict with 
well-established principles of administration. If 
a banker is to have his office well administered, 
he must have the free selection and the full con- 
trol of his subordinates. The same proposition 
is true as to an engineer, a postmaster, the head 
of the entire postal service, the head of a custom- 
house, or the head of any single office or single 
department. The proposition rests on the facts 
of human nature. Subordinates must feel that, 
within lawful limits, thev owe their selection for, 
and their retention of, their places to their offi- 
cial superior. They must feel, at all times, that 
they are under his immediate supervision and his 
direct control. He must, no doubt, be held to 
strict responsibility. But that must be our se- 
curity for his right use of his official power. If 
we tie his hands, we make it impossible for him 
to use his power for good as well as for evil. 



160 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

Security lies in responsibility, of an official who 
is free, not in fetters. 

It is said, too, that by taking these minor 
offices out of " politics," we diminish the power 
of the professional politicians, and make it, at 
least to some extent, less possible for them to 
pay for election work. 

Kow it is, no doubt, the fact that the minor 
offices are used, to some extent, to pay for elec- 
tion work. But they are used to pay only the 
subordinates. The} r will continue to be so used 
until we deal effectually with the superiors. 

But what is it proposed to do, as to the use of 
all the superior offices ; and as to those millions 
of dollars that are paid by men who pay their 
money for "political purposes" before election, 
and who get their own individual interests so 
well served, by officials who ought to serve only 
the people, after election? I concede that the^ 
friends of "Civil Service Beform" have done a 
very valuable public service, in arousing the 
public mind to the necessity of destroying the 
" spoils system " as to minor offices. But, if it 
is important to destroy that system as to minor 
offices, it is all the more important to destroy it 
as to the offices at the head. And it is with 
those offices at the head that we must make 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 161 

our beginning. The " spoils system " cannot be 
rooted out as to the minor offices, until it is root- 
ed out as to the higher ones. 

But if the " Keform " could be carried out to 
the letter, in its full length and breadth, it would 
be a mere drop in the bucket. The results would 
be too inconsiderable to deserve serious atten- 
tion. It is wholly inadequate to meet the funda- 
mental existing evils. 

We come next to a consideration of what is gen- 
erally termed the " Australian Ballot System." 

The chief feature of this system is, that it is an 
effort to secure still greater isolation and secre- 
cy in the action of the individual citizen. It is 
an attempt to protect the individual citizen from 
influence, of any kind, good or bad, at the mo- 
ment of his depositing a secret ballot in the ballot- 
box. To that end it proposes to put the citizen 
himself in a box. It proposes also to have " tick- 
ets ? ' or " ballots " printed at the expense of the 
State. The theory is, that this will do something, 
or much, to prevent the use of corrupt influences 
with the citizen, especially the corrupt use of 
money. 

But here again, what a grotesque dispropor- 
tion between the disease and the remedy ! The 

amount, and the continuous regularity, of this 
11 



162 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

election work, which constitute the producing 
cause of these standing armies, remain untouched. 
The citizen will still be compelled, if he wishes his 
vote to count, to vote for the candidates of one 
of the large armies. He will still continue to be 
loyal to his own army, to dislike deserters, and 
to surrender his freedom of individual judgment 
and action at the dictation of his party leaders. 
He will still continue to be the political puppet. 

The bribery question is, I submit, equally un- 
important ; I mean, when it is viewed in its true 
proportions. The use of money in the purchase 
of individual voters, its use in retail, is, I believe, 
considerably exaggerated. However that may 
be, our chief concern is not with its use at retail, 
but its use at wholesale, its use in controlling 
nominations, not of one party, but of all parties ; 
its use in the virtual purchase of votes by the 
thousands, hundreds of thousands, and the mill- 
ion. So long as we leave the control of all our 
highest officials in the hands of the men who 
supply the party treasuries, who virtually buy 
votes by the million, in advance, it is not an econ- 
omy of time to give much thought to the purchase 
of single voters on the day of election. If we are 
to depend on putting the citizen in a box, we 
must box him long before election day. 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 168 

The advocates of this especial scheme attach 
much importance to the fact that the State is to 
pay the cost of printing ballots. 

But the cost of printing ballots is compara- 
tively trifling; even in the largest cities it is only 
a few thousands of dollars. But how is it as to 
these hundreds of thousands of dollars that are 
used before election day and after election day 
for " political purposes " — in other words, for the 
virtual purchase of officials and official action. 

What we need to consider is, not the purchase 
of a few thousand votes of individual voters, so 
much as the sale of the offices at the head, the 
purchase of legislatures, and the millions stolen 
from the public treasuries, at every hand, after 
election. 

But, if there be any soundness in the positions 
before taken, this separation of the individual 
citizen, at the very time when he is to take po- 
litical action, this secrecy of the action of the 
citizen, this protecting him from influence, all 
rest on unsound grounds and on erroneous theo- 
ries of democratic government. 

Publicity is of its very essence. Influence of 
one citizen by another, by fair, reasonable, open, 
public argument, is of its very essence. Respon- 
sibility of the individual citizen, for his individu- 



164 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

al action, is of its very essence. All these re- 
quire publicity. Publicity, too, is the strongest 
security that is practicable against bribery. 

I submit, then, that the so-called u Australian 
system" is fundamentally unsound in principle, 
is an attempt to deal only with surface symptoms, 
and should be put in the category of petty polit- 
ical panaceas. 

Another proposed measure, which has fre- 
quently received very reputable support, is that 
the heads of administrative departments should 
have seats in the popular assembly (or in one 
branch of the popular assembly, where there are 
two), and should there be required from time to 
time to answer questions as to their department 
administration. 

This is especially urged as a means of enforc- 
ing administrative responsibility. 

It is commonly said that this feature has been 
tried in Great Britain, and " works well." 

If there is one nation among civilized peoples 
especially distinguished for administrative in- 
efficiency, except in some departments which are 
practically free from the operation of this feat- 
ure, it is Great Britain. 

The reasons are not hard to find. In a popu- 
lar assembly charged with the general supervis- 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 165 

ion and control of the entire affairs of a large 
people, it is quite impracticable to give full and 
sufficient statements of the details of department 
work in mere oral debate, or oral conference. 
Such statements can be given only in full and 
carefully prepared reports, in print, with full de- 
tails of facts and figures. Not only is it imprac- 
ticable for such reports to be made in any other 
form than in print, but in no other form can they 
be properly examined and studied. 

Moreover, the head of a large executive de- 
partment, who has to superintend and control 
the operations of a large number of subordinates, 
must give his time and work to his department. 
As an ingenious device for wasting time and hu- 
man strength, nothing can well be conceived 
more efficient than this favorite of literary poli- 
ticians, the asking and answering of questions on 
the floor of the popular assembly. 

It is simply impossible, for any head of a large 
department, who does his work well, to give any 
considerable amount of time to defending his 
"policy" in a deliberative assembly. Very 
probably, if he be a man of action, he will not 
be a man of words. If he is to have a " policy " 
worth defending, his time and toil, his days and 
nights, must be given to making that " policy," 



166 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

not in making speeches about it. Human life is 
not long enough, human strength is not strong 
enough, to enable one man, as a rule, to manage 
a great state department and also take part in 
the conferences of a working deliberative assem- 
bly. If his keeping his place is to depend on the 
results of parliamentary contests, over parlia- 
mentary questions, then, I concede, his presence 
will be necessary in the parliamentary assembly. 
Then, too, it will matter little how well he does 
the work of administration. But if his adminis- 
trative work is to be done, and done well, that 
work must have his time and thought. His re- 
sponsibility must be for his administrative work, 
to his administrative superiors, not for forcible 
argument in a deliberative assembly. 

Then, too, even now, it may be said that citi- 
zens should give greater attention to " politics," 
should attend the " party" primary meetings, 
and seek reform, within the existing political 
" parties," by existing methods. 

But this has been often tried in the past, and 
has always failed. It will certainly and always 
fail in the future, unless we can find some way to 
enable amateurs to beat professionals, or some 
way by which ordinary men, who have to earn 
their living, can give all their time to " politics," 



THE CHARGES NEEDED. L61 

and yet give all their time to the regular occupa- 
tion by which they gain their bread. The best 

men in the community are the men who work, 

who are, for one or another reason, compelled to 
work, who work hard at some regular calling. 
Now if some one will devise a way by which 
these men who do the work of society can at the 
same time give large amounts of time to this 
work of managing caucuses and elections — in 
short, if we can make each one of these citizens 
"two gentlemen at once 7 ' — then there may be 
some possibility of getting good government 
work out of our present election machine. 

But it may be suggested that we can have 
longer official terms. 

This suggestion will be found, on careful con- 
sideration, to overlook the essential reason, and 
the necessary result, of any and every system of 
fixed terms of office, of whatever length. 

The purpose of the term system in any form, 
with terms of any length, is to keep the highest 
officials under the control of the citizens. 

Xow this purpose of using the term system 
at all requires that the term be short. The 
purpose is to have the official under the control 
of the citizen all the time, or as nearly so as is 
practicable. If, then, the term be long, assuming 



168 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

that such control were really secured by having 
a term of any length, the official will be virtually 
freed from this control of the citizen for the 
greater part of the term. For the more distant 
the election, the more independent is the official, 
and the more he will count on time to do away 
with the unpopularity that might come to him 
from some of his official acts. 

But a term that is long at its beginning be- 
comes short near its end. And then the evils 
continually increase. Then comes the inevitable 
slavery to the election machine, and to the rich 
and powerful interests that control it. So that 
a longer term loses the assumed advantages, and 
keeps the actual disadvantages, of a term that is 
short. 

Moreover, even if it should be supposed that a 
single official, standing by himself, would be 
somewhat more independent if his term were 
longer, yet no substantial improvement would be 
gained if all the highest officials still continued 
to hold their offices under terms of some length. 
For they would all still be dependent on carrying 
elections ; vacancies in all these offices would still 
be certain, and would come at fixed periods ; the 
mass of election work would still be large, con- 
tinuous, and regular; it would still be in the 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 100 

hands of professionals ; and those professionals 
would still, in one way or another, select and 
control the officials. We should make no sub- 
stantial gain in emancipating the citizen, the peo- 
ple, or the public servant. 

Turn it as we may, the fact remains, and can- 
not in any way be avoided, that the individual 
citizens, educated and uneducated alike, in gener- 
al, are, and always must be, incompetent to form 
an intelligent judgment on the official action of 
public officials, except in the local affairs that 
come under the cognizance of the town, and oth- 
er local, primary meetings; that, in the larger 
peoples of larger numbers, the members of the 
supreme popular assembly will be the only men 
in the State who can possibly have the knowl- 
edge necessary to form an intelligent judgment 
as to the official conduct of any member of the 
assembly or the chief executive ; and that the at- 
tempt to secure responsibility, on the part of those 
members, or of the chief executive, to the body 
of citizens, through tenure by election, for fixed 
terms of years, either short or long, necessarily 
and certainly fails to accomplish that result, but 
on the contrary does necessarily and certainly 
turn government into an election machine. 

This term system, in any and all its forms, is 



1*70 THE POLITICAL PKOBLEM. 

the result of attempts to work out a rough rudi- 
mentary idea of democratic government, in the 
form of government by the individual citizens. 
Mr. Lincoln struck a grand phrase when he spoke 
of " government of the people, by the people, for 
the people." But to put that idea into practice, 
if we are to give the words all the meaning of 
which they are susceptible, and which they ought 
to carry, is a thing yet to be accomplished. To put 
in practical form the idea that this great combi- 
nation of states, formerly, as between themselves, 
independent, is a single living organism, that it 
must have unity of existence, unity of organiza- 
tion, and, above all, unity of brain and will — to 
work out that idea in practical form, to make it 
a living, accomplished fact, that is a work of mag- 
nitude, to be undertaken and accomplished by 
this American people, after its simple, old-fash- 
ioned methods, by the regular machinery pro- 
vided by law, a machinery often before used, and 
always with marked success, the Constitutional 
Convention. 

But some persons, even if they are convinced 
that the points here presented are sound " theo- 
retically," yet will be strongly inclined to the 
opinion that the points cannot be put into practice. 

Why not ? 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 171 

The undertaking will not bo as hard as was 
the formation of a single national government, 

by the inhabitants of thirteen different colonies, 
some of them of different blood, habits of thought, 
and religion, with the strongest fears of any gov- 
ernment except their own colonial legislatures, 
who had just thrown off the yoke of a foreign 
king, and whose citizens, in general, had the most 
petty, provincial ideas. Consider, too, that that 
undertaking was accomplished without the rail- 
road or the telegraph, and virtually without the 
press and the post-office ; in other words, almost 
wholly without the modern highways of thought. 
We are apt to forget the difficulties under which 
the men labored who framed our national Con- 
stitution and procured its adoption, and the great 
facilities we now have for forming a great na- 
tional idea and a great national sentiment, and 
putting that idea and sentiment into practical 
forms. If the principles here set forth are sound, 
a point which can be determined only after full 
and free public discussion, then it will be much 
easier to amend the national Constitution than it 
was to make it. It will be much easier for this 
now consolidated people to make some changes 
in its political organization than it was to get an 
organization, or to get and keep a mere political 



172 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

existence. Let us remember how we came into 
being, when we came into being, and what we 
have done in these years during which we have 
only reached our political majority, while we 
have been cutting our political teeth, and having 
our political mumps and measles. Bearing these 
points in mind, who will venture to say that the 
work of amending our political system in all 
necessary points is beyond the capacity of this 
people ? 

The main ground, however, on which would 
rest the impression that the changes which are 
necessary cannot be adopted in practice would 
probably be the idea that those changes would 
be opposed by the professional politicians. 

Even if that were so, it would constitute no 
good reason for not making the effort, provided 
the changes are necessary. If the principles here 
urged are sound, they are sure, in time, to be 
adopted. And be it remembered that political 
forces are larger, and political growth is more 
rapid, with us, at this time, than with any other 
people, or at any former time. Political events 
with us move with great speed. If it were the 
fact, therefore, that these changes would be op- 
posed by the professional politicians, that would 
be no good reason why we should not at least 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 173 

make an effort to improve our methods of gov- 
ernment. 

But is it so certain that these ideas would be 
opposed by the professionals ? 

As a single individual, my own present view is, 
that we should do wisely if we were to put our 
modified system of government into operation 
by adopting it with the men who are at the time 
already in office ; that is, we should abolish the 
term system at once for all officials, make all 
the administrative officials directly responsible to 
their immediate superiors, make the chief ex- 
ecutive directly responsible to the legislature — 
removable by a concurrent two-thirds vote of 
both houses — and then provide that the new 
method of election by the process of the public 
meeting be adopted only in the selection of pub- 
lic officers to be chosen as the successors of men 
already in office. 

I should urge this for two reasons : 

The first is, that such a step would be best for 
the highest public interests. It would introduce 
proper administrative methods and efficient men, 
in the shortest time practicable. Among the men 
now in office there is a large number of able men, 
men who are very desirous of doing good work, 
and who would do it if we allowed them. Many 



174 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

of them have a fair amount of experience. These 
men now in office are in a measure representa- 
tive men, as much so as any similar number of 
men whom we have any reasonable chance of get- 
ting under the present system. The men in office 
at the time, therefore, seem to me, upon the whole, 
the best body of men that it is at present practica- 
ble for us to obtain, in whose hands to trust our 
government work ; in other words, they would 
constitute the best body of men that we could 
reasonably expect to get, with whom to make our 
experiment of common-sense business methods. 

The second reason is, that, on this plan, we 
could probably command the support of the pro- 
fessional politicians to such a modification of our 
political system. I mean, if the ideas here pre- 
sented are sound. Even the professional politi- 
cians have in their composition a large propor- 
tion of human nature ; and they are very willing 
and eager to serve popular interests, and espe- 
cially to fall in with popular ideas — so long as it 
is not necessary at the same time to sacrifice their 
own personal interests. 

Now these proposed changes would, first and 
foremost, directly and especially serve the per- 
sonal interests of the most powerful professional 
politicians of both the present so-called political 



THE CHANGES NEEDED. 175 

" parties." The most powerful men of both par- 
ties at this time are those who are now in office. 
They number about as many of one party as of 
the other. Together they form only one " party," 
of two parts. They have been long accustomed 
to working and trading together, in great har- 
mony. The only point of difference between 
them consists in their "platforms." But each 
makes the same use of its " platform." They 
parade it before election, and use it for a war- 
dance after election. 

This plan, therefore, of doing away with the 
term system, for all men at the time in office, 
happens not only to be for the highest public in- 
terests of the people, but it would also, directly 
and immediately, most effectively serve the per- 
sonal interests of all these professionals. 

It would command their support. That is sure- 
ly a strong consideration in its favor. 

And has any scheme yet been presented to the 
public mind for the improvement of administra- 
tive methods that combined all these features ? 
that even appeared to have a tendency to accom- 
plish the emancipation of the citizen, of the peo- 
ple, and of the public servant ? — in short, to serve 
the highest public interests of both citizen and 
people, and at the same time serve the personal 



176 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

interests of the professional politicians of both 
the present prominent political parties ? 

Let me put another question. 

Is there not at least an approach to a possibil- 
ity that our present public servants, even assum- 
ing that we never had better men, would give us 
better work under a better system than they can 
give us under our present one ? 



SOME GENEKAL CONSIDEKATIONS. 

But it may be said, all this is mere " theo- 
rizing." 

The discussion of our present national Consti- 
tution, when it was under consideration in the 
Constitutional Convention, was mere " theoriz- 
ing." 

It must be conceded that the members of that 
Convention " theorized " to some purpose. 

Let us look at our present political position. 

Our present position is, that something must 
be done. 

Then the question is, what is the right thing 
to do? Whoever objects to what is here pro- 
posed can fairly be called on to propose some- 
thing better. It is not greatly to our purpose to 
give a vivacious and interesting account of mere 
phenomena ; to put in readable form a statement 
of the present and past working of our political 
institutions. 

In its way that is very well. 
12 



178 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

But what are we to do — in the future ? Events 
will not stand still, even if we men may wish to 
do so. 

We cannot, and shall not, let our political fort- 
unes drift at the mercy of the political winds and 
waves. We have to study the charts, find out 
the rocks and shoals, learn, as far as we can, all 
the points of danger, and then, as far as human 
foresight avails to that end, we must lay out the 
course of our future political voyage "beforehand, 
according to our best knowledge and judgment. 
Many men are inclined, when any scheme of po- 
litical organization, or reorganization, is advanced 
for public consideration, to sneer at it as " theo- 
retical," and to say that these things cannot be 
" planned beforehand ;" that constitutions are not 
drafted on paper, but they must grow. 

This kind of criticism comes usually from 
men who have not taken the time, or given the 
hard work, necessary for a full comprehension of 
the real points of the political problem. No 
doubt, in one sense, the careful consideration 
of any fundamental modification of our political 
system is " theorizing.' 5 

But the formation, or amendment, of every 
state constitution, of every city and town charter, 
is a piece of political " theorizing" of precisely 



80MB GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 179 

this same kind. We Americans are, of all things, 
a nation of " political theorizers." We are not 
believers in political patch-work. We are, by nat- 
ure and education, "constitution-makers." We 
are the political descendants of the men who came 
over in the Mayflower. They were the men who 
first in the history of the world formed, by their 
common deliberations, a paper constitution, a po- 
litical compact, of limited scope, of vague form, 
but yet a written constitution, drawn up before- 
hand, on paper, under which a great people began 
its political existence. I confess to a strong ad- 
miration for the political work and the political 
methods of that little body of men, who furnished 
the first example in the work of making " paper 
constitutions," an example which has been since 
followed with such uniformity by the American 
people, in the drafting, and adoption, and amend- 
ment of charters and constitutions for its towns, 
cities, states, and the nation. 

The practice is not now to be abandoned. 

Especially are we given to political experi- 
ment. The consideration of any new scheme of 
government, or of any proposal for the modifica- 
tion of any old scheme of government, must nec- 
essarily be "theoretical;" that is, it must be based 
on ideas — on ideas of what political means are 



180 THE POLITICAL PEOBLEM. 

necessary to produce certain political ends. What 
those means are, always is and always must be, 
inevitably, to some extent, matter of speculation, 
of conjecture, of " theory." But with this Ameri- 
can people the practical political question of the 
day is, shall we continue to use a " theory " which 
we have thoroughly tried, which we know has 
already failed in the past, and will certainly fail 
in the future, or shall we make the attempt to 
devise some new political process, or some new 
combination of old processes ? If we conclude, 
as we certainly shall, to attempt something new, 
in this new land of new things, of new political 
forces and new political processes, what shall it 
be ? And how are we to decide ? There is only one 
way possible, and that is to study the past, to 
study human nature — the material which we must 
use — and to work out a " theory," an idea — or a 
set of ideas. We must discuss them in public, 
turn them over, put them under our mental mi- 
croscopes, and then work out a scheme, a system. 
For this body politic is a very delicate organism, 
one that requires careful handling ; if we change 
its laws of life at one point, we may need to 
change them at other points. 

But change, of some kind, we undoubtedly 
must make, fundamental and constitutional. 



SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. l fi l 

We must give up our system of distrust of 
public servants. We must finally realize that 
governments, as well as other organizations of 
human beings, must be managed on the basis of 
confidence in men. We all know that single in- 
dividuals, here and there, under the stress of 
temptation, prove faithless to the trusts they un- 
undertake. As a rule, however, men who are 
selected with care are faithful, and do their 
work as well as they know how. Their errors 
are largely errors of ignorance. . All the vast 
operations of commerce, all private affairs, are, 
and must be, transacted on the basis of confi- 
dence in human nature. On no other basis can 
the world move. We are compelled to act on 
this basis now, in our administration of public 
affairs under our present system. 

But we must act on this basis throughout. We 
must realize that all our public affairs must be ad- 
ministered by men. Those men must be sur- 
rounded by the same safeguards with which pru- 
dent men surround their servants in private life. 
We must select them with the greatest care ; we 
must give them the same opportunities to gain 
skill and experience ; we must keep them under 
careful supervision and control ; and we must pro- 
vide the proper means for securing their full re- 



182 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

sponsibility to the people. But, having done all 
this, we must give them our confidence, knowing 
that in individual instances it will be abused, but 
that in the large majority of cases our public ser- 
vants will serve us faithfully, if they are only free. 
The more we think of it, the more strong will 
be our disbelief in astronomical politics ; or in 
any political system under which public officials 
are put in and out of office at fixed periods of 
time — after any fixed number of revolutions of 
this or any other planet around this or any other 
sun. If men were apples or pumpkins, if they 
ripened and decayed with the seasons of this 
star which we term the earth, then it might be 
conceded that we could properly fix their terms 
of service by the same periods of time that fixed 
their ripening and decay. But men are not so 
constituted. And it would seem natural and 
reasonable that the times of their appointment 
to, and removal from, public offices, should have 
some relation to the times of their fitness and 
unfitness for the public service. In private af- 
fairs we select men for certain kinds of work on 
account of their fitness, actual or supposed, for 
those kinds of work ; we keep them in our em- 
ploy so long as they do their work well ; and we 
discharge them when, for any reason, they do 



SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 183 

their work ill. We know, too, that men, if they 
are of the right kind, if we have been wise in 
our selection, until very late in life, improve with 
time; they get greater skill, greater prudence, 
greater wisdom ; each year makes them more 
valuable servants, at least for the higher posi- 
tions of supervision and control. For the less 
responsible work of execution we need the strong- 
er muscles and greater physical vigor of youth. 
But in the high positions of supervision and con- 
trol we need men who have gained wisdom, from 
long experience in the administration of public 
affairs. 

Now the very essence of the astronomical sys- 
tem is, that we cannot have men of wisdom and 
experience in the highest public places. For, 
if any public official does his duty to the peo- 
ple, faithfully and fearlessly, he is certain of 
being in time removed from the public service. 
It is not that the people do not wish him longer 
to serve them, or that he does not wish longer 
to serve the people, or even that the profes- 
sional politicians do not wish to give us as good 
public service as the system allows. But no 
one is free ; the people is not free ; the official 
is not free ; the politicians are not free. All 
are bound by this overpowering necessity of 



184 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

carrying on this monstrous astronomical election 
machine. Free democratic government is made 
impossible. 

We must change the system ; so that the citi- 
zens can have freedom of action; so that the 
people can have freedom of action ; so that the 
officials can have freedom of action, with thor- 
ough and constant responsibility to the people; 
and finally, so that the people may be ruled by 
the people's brain. 

The actual working of our present system is, 
that the servants appoint themselves, instead of 
being appointed by the people ; the servants rule 
the people, instead of the people ruling the ser- 
vants. If we judge political systems by their 
practical results, our system is not democratic. 
It may be such in form ; it is not so in its work- 
ing results. 

But working results are what is required by 
this practical American people. And, as a work- 
ing result, what we have accomplished thus far 
is, with some democratic features, a combination 
of ochlocracy and plutocracy — a rule of mob and 
money — greatly restrained, no doubt, by public 
opinion, or, speaking more correctly, by public 
sentiment. For on any specific public question 
of actual, practical public affairs, the people is 



SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 185 

not now so organized that it can form and utter 
anything that can properly be called an "opin- 
ion" — "of the people/' The will of the people 
is not supreme. For Ave have no adequate polit- 
ical machinery, under our present imperfect or- 
ganization, for its formation or its expression. 
The only organ it now has is, substantially, the 
press ; and, great as is the power of the press, 
admirable as has been its service, it is not capa- 
ble of serving as the people's brain and will in 
the actual daily administration of public affairs. 
The people's present political life is a continued 
contest for place, between large combinations of 
individuals, to serve personal ends, instead of be- 
ing one continuous, harmonious, co-operative ex- 
penditure of the combined energy of one people, 
organized to act as one body, under one mind 
and will, to serve public ends, so far as that re- 
sult is practicable by merely human means, by 
merely human machinery. 

The doing of our public work demands a large 
brain and a strong hand ; a larger brain and a 
stronger hand than the brain and hand of any sin- 
gle individual or single faction. It demands, too, 
something more than the sporadic thought of an 
imperfectly organized mass of individual citizens, 
even if they be orderly and law-abiding, and take 



186 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

part each year in what is termed a " popular elec- 
tion." The work demands, too, something better 
than the alternating will of factions, constantly 
engaged in a struggle for public place. In short, 
the work can be done satisfactorily only by the 
mind and hand of the people — the whole people 
— thinking and acting as one people, thinking at 
the time it acts, on the man or measure on which 
it is to act. Something more is needed than an 
annual battle with ballots between two great 
contending armies. This American people, made 
up of individuals and smaller peoples, must be 
organized — organized rightly. It must cease to 
be a comparatively disorganized collection of 
mere individuals. Each people must have its 
own head and its own hand. It must administer 
its own affairs. But it must be organized as one 
people. Our public work is now too vast, our 
public interests are now too large, to be handled 
on the rotatory principle — to have their control 
put up year after year as the prize of these great 
election contests, and put alternately into the 
hands of one and another faction of professional 
politicians, whose time and efforts are continually 
given to the management of these vast election 
campaigns. Public work calls for the highest 
wisdom and administrative talent that the people 



SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATION 187 

can command. It cannot be done, if it is to be 
done well, by merely ordinary men, of merely or- 
dinary knowledge, of ordinary experience, taken 
from time to time from the ranks of the citi- 
zens, to serve for only one, two, ten, or even 
twenty years, and then to be dropped back again 
into the mass of citizens, it may be in the midst 
of a great negotiation, or even of a great war. 
Astronomical politics served fairly well as a first 
experiment in the science of popular govern- 
ment. It is, no doubt, a great advance on the 
tyranny of irresponsible hereditary kings and 
hereditary classes. It may even now answer, 
passably, for the affairs of a people that has 
small numbers and little wealth. One can drive 
with comparative ease and safety on a corduroy 
road, with light weights and at low speed. But 
when we use the large masses, large forces, and 
large velocities of a great and complex modern 
society, then we must have the strongest and 
smoothest machinery and the best methods that 
modern political science can devise. "We must 
have a solid political road-bed, carefully graded, 
with political steel rails, and all the best appli- 
ances that can be provided by the wisdom of the 
whole people. When we talk of "government by 
the people," in these days, we mean something 



188 THE POLITICAL PROBLEM. 

more than that this great mass of individual cit- 
izens shall be the pawns on the political chess- 
board, in the great game of " politics " as now 
played. We mean that these citizens shall do 
something more than serve as the automatic dig- 
its in a great election machine, to put printed 
lists in a box, even if the machine be operated 
without a jar, in strict accordance w T ith the forms 
of law. To call this thing " government by the 
people " is not an accurate use of words. 

I have it fully in mind that government is to 
be something more than a mere organization of 
the people, for the mere transaction of the peo- 
ple's business on ordinary business principles. It 
must also secure to the individual citizen, and to 
the whole people, the fullest measure of healthy 
political activity and political freedom ; it must, 
so far as such things can be as yet secured by 
human institutions, secure to every individual 
citizen, to each smaller people, and to the whole 
nation, a free, vigorous, healthy political life. 

But the accomplishment of those ends is en- 
tirely consistent with vigorous and efficient ad- 
ministration. More than that, the same changes 
that are needed to accomplish the one result are 
indispensable in order to accomplish the other. 
In such an organization as is necessary for such 



SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 189 

a people as ours, if our public affairs are to be 
administered with wisdom and efficiency, it is 
needless to say that the different classes of the 
public work must be in the hands of men of 
training, especially of that kind of training that 
can be gained only by long experience. Pota- 
toes and beets come to their full, mature growth 
in one or two years. For fruits and vegetables 
the year system may be well. But human be- 
ings, as yet developed, need a lifetime — the time 
of human, not potato, life — to get their growth. 
Let us rid ourselves, finally and forever, of this 
antiquated maiden fancy, that men can serve the 
people well without training and experience, and 
can reach the full measure of their usefulness in 
two, four, or ten years. 

Xow, has not the experience of the human race, 
especially has not this experience of our own 
during the last one hundred years, definitely set- 
tled some political laws, that must be observed 
in the organization of any democratic govern- 
ment, that is to be a practical working success i 

If so, what are those laws ? 

Have they been here stated with accuracy I 

THE END. 



POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. 



Politics for Young Americans. By Charles Nobd- 

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BY ALBERT STICKNEY. 



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